athenahealth Finds a Buyer and a Merger Partner

athenahealth Finds a Buyer and a Merger Partner

Only two weeks into the month of November 2018, and already the deal value is higher than all of October. Through November 14, nearly $9.8 billion has been spent, but that’s largely because of a single deal, and one that’s been long in the works. After a lengthy bidding process, athenahealth (NASDAQ: ATHN) was acquired by Veritas Capital and Evergreen Coast Capital, the private equity subsidiary of activist investor group Elliott Management Corporation. athenahealth’s focus is on hospital and ambulatory customers and its products range from medical records, revenue cycle, patient engagement, care coordination and population health services. The final price of... Read More »
Veritas Capital Doubles Down on Digital Health

Veritas Capital Doubles Down on Digital Health

Veritas Capital Management has made some aggressive moves into the digital health space in recent years. Its investment focus is on companies that provide critical products and services, not just in healthcare, but also in aerospace and defense, communications, energy and education. So its recent activity is interesting, and expensive. In April 2016, Veritas paid $820 million to acquire Verisk Health from its parent, Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSK). Verisk Health provides data services, analytics and advanced technology to support value-based healthcare delivery and payment systems. At the time of the sale, it had 350 clients in the United States. The price consisted of $720 million... Read More »

Digital Health Data Draws Big Money

Mergers and acquisitions in the eHealth sector are surging, and data is driving some of the biggest deals in health care. Deal volume in the digital health space went from 68 transactions in 2013 to 157 announced in 2016, a 131% increase. Transaction levels remained in the double-digits from 2000 until 2012, when 103 digital deals were recorded. Since 2014, when annual deal volume reached triple-digits, M&A has grown almost exponentially. Dollar volume shot up as well, growing from annual totals in the hundreds of millions early in the century to seven-figure totals beginning in 2005. The $11.5 billion total logged in 2009 was something of a milestone. The $20.2 billion total posted in... Read More »
Digital Health Deals Sparked in 2016

Digital Health Deals Sparked in 2016

Virtually every aspect of the healthcare industry now relies on some form of technology or data to improve patient outcomes, reduce costs or readmissions, or to analyze masses of population health data in order to manage that population better. Even more pressing in 2017 is the need to secure all that data and technology. But that hasn’t slowed the pace of M&A one bit. Mergers and acquisitions in the digital health sector soared 23% in 2016, to 155 transactions, compared with 126 deals in 2015. Even more impressive, the sector posted its highest dollar volume ever, nearly $20.2 billion—a 226% increase versus 2015. However, a single mega-merger accounted for 64% of 2016’s dollar... Read More »

Digital Health Deals Strike New Heights

The digital health sector is on fire in the first half of 2016. Through June 24 we’ve recorded 82 transactions with a business-to-business eHealth company as the target. Sixteen of those were announced in June alone. (We don’t cover consumer-facing health apps or social media platforms.) In the first half of 2015, just 60 deals were announced in this sector. The final tally was 123 eHealth deals for all of 2015, a new record. It’s no stretch of the imagination to think this sector could set another record for 2016. The eHealth market of today includes electronic health records, revenue cycle management and data analytics, various mobile health start-ups from patient... Read More »