Fundings and Acquisitions Around the Medical Technology World in May

ACQUISITIONS:

Alliance Health Networks, who currently serves 1.5 million registered users, announced on May 15th plans to acquire Medify. Alliance is one of the country’s leading social network companies involved in the healthcare industry, and by combing with Medify, who specializes in data-driven treatment information, patients and caregivers will have access to “the industry’s most comprehensive social engagement platform.”

Stead Bruwell, CEO of Alliance Health discussed the benefits that are expected to come with this acquisition:

As social networks continue to transform industries and change the way people live, Alliance Health remains focused on empowering people to successfully navigate their personal health journey, free and independent of the healthcare system. The acquisition of Medify brings us two critical elements — powerful data analytics technologies and an extremely accomplished team — which reinforce our status as the industry’s most robust social engagement platform. Combined, we will be in the best position to help consumers make smart health care decisions by providing a unique combination of relevant knowledge and tools for every drug, treatment, and condition.

Quality Systems, Inc., announced on May 16th, that the company acquired the Poseidon Group. The acquisition closed on May 1st. Quality Systems went forward with this acquisition to help with the growth of its offering, NextGen Inpatient Solutions. NextGen offers to small hospitals a variety of healthcare IT services. With this acquisition, NextGen will able to “extend its suite of solutions and footprint across hospitals by leveraging the Poseidon Group’s Emergency Department Information System and integrating the solution into NextGen Healthcare’s current product offerings.”

Steve Pucket, executive vice president of NextGen Healthcare Inpatient Solutions,  said concerning the acquisition:

This acquisition provides our clients additional value by extending our hospital suite portfolio advanced solutions to the Emergency Department. This product, along with our surgical services suite, will help support our rapid growth upward into the community hospital market. It will also provide existing Poseidon clients with access to our complete portfolio of hospital products and services. We believe this acquisition will further strengthen our capabilities, expand our client base and position NextGen Healthcare Inpatient Solutions for continued growth, as we work to meet the needs of hospitals and their patients.

High-ranking officials from the Poseidon Group, Carr Scott and W. Kyle Taylor, will both have senior roles at NextGen Healthcare, while Jeff Oyler, Poseidon Group’s President and founder, will assume a position with healthcare technology transformation.

FUNDINGS:

$1.6 million has been raised for Enforcer eCoaching, a health coaching start-up founded by Dr. Michael Roizen and Dr. Mehmet Oz, also known together as “You Docs”. This amount came from 15 different investors, which made a big dent in the $3 million goal that Enforcer is aiming for.

There isn’t much known about Enforcer eCoaching, as it has no website and Marty Butler, President and chief operating officer, made no comments on funding. However, the premise of the company is “a series of email-based, daily interactive wellness coaching programs designed to help people prevent and/or reverse diseases attributed to excessive weight and use of tobacco products,” according to an article on MedCity News. Enforcer also offers four programs; tobacco cessation, weight loss, weight loss to manage diabetes and weight loss to manage hypertension. It is mainly being aimed toward employers in order to “help companies improve the health, vitality and satisfaction of employees and reduce employers’ healthcare costs.”

Proteus Biomedical is hoping to raise $50 million for “Raisin”, an “intelligent medicine suite of technology” created by the company, according to Mobi Health News. They have raised around $17.5 million in a recent round of funding. Proteus hasn’t been seen raising money in a few years, since Novartis, a company which piloted Raisin, invested $24 million in 2010.

The technology suite, “Raisin” includes “an ingestible biomedical sensor, a wearable, peel-and-stick patch, and a companion smartphone app.” According to another article on Mobi Health News, the “Raisin technology runs on an electric charge generated by the patient’s stomach acid,” and “the charge is detected through the patient’s body by a sensing patch on the patient’s skin.” Then, the time and date that the pill was taken is recorded by the patch, as well as other vitals such as heart rate and activity. This information is in turn sent to the app on the patient’s smart phone as well as the internet where others can review and analyze it.

The Raisin system has debuted in the UK and there are plans for it go live commercially in countries across Europe in the near future.

Fans of Simplee, a website similar to Mint.com for tracking medical expenses, will be pleased to hear that the company has finished Series A round of funding, bringing in $6 million. The Social+Capital Partnership led the round and investors in the company, Greylock Partners Israel, were involved.

While Simplee currently offers bill tracking and payments, this round of funding will allow the company to add plan recommendations, care recommendations, and eventually launch a mobile app. CEO Tom Shoval announced that a feature that detects and flags billing areas will be added soon as well. Other features that are already available in Simplee are tracking a person’s insurance company’s database and updating the customer’s profile when a new bill becomes available, lists how much both the customer and insurance company has to pay, and allows payments to be made directly through the site. It was launched a year ago and claims that the average Simplee bill pay user spends about $1,000 on bills by using the website, iwth more than 65% of users using the website regularly.

About the author

Katie Clark

Katie Clark is originally from Colorado and currently lives in Utah with her husband and son. She writes primarily for Smart Phone Health Care, but contributes to several Health Care Scene blogs, including EMR Thoughts, EMR and EHR, and EMR and HIPAA. She enjoys learning about Health IT and mHealth, and finding ways to improve her own health along the way.

   

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