MobiHealthNews reported on 53 new acquisitions over the course of 2019. That doesn’t mean all of these deals closed this year: several of these deals were announced late in the year and won’t close until next year, while others may have closed in previous years but weren’t made public until 2019. And of course, definitions of digital health vary, and not every one of these deals will fit everyone’s definition.
Still, though, it was a big year for M&A in the space. The deals we tracked totalled $8.16 billion. They included moves from big tech companies Alphabet, Amazon and Apple, and healthcare giants Philips, Medtronic and UnitedHealthcare. The year also saw exits for some early digital health stalwarts like Mango Health, Qualcomm Life, Sherpaa, PatientsLikeMe and, of course, Fitbit. Five of the year’s acquisitions were done by private equity firms; the rest were strategic. Recurring themes included telemedicine, remote patient monitoring and medical education.
Read on for the year’s acquisitions, presented as usual in descending order of deal size for the 10 acquisitions with disclosed price tags, then in chronological order after that.
Dassault Systèmes acquires Medidata. Cloud-based clinical trial SaaS Medidata was acquired by French 3-D and product lifecycle management specialist Dassault Systèmes for a hefty $5.8 billion in June, our sister publication Healthcare IT News reported.
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“It’s a logical evolution of the scope of what we do,” Bernard Charles, chairman and CEO of Dassault Systèmes, told CNBC. “Life science is going to go through an accelerated digitization of its own processes, basically. That’s the motivation for Dassault Systèmes to buy Medidata Solutions.”
Alphabet acquires Fitbit. In November, after months of rumors, Alphabet officially announced its $2.1 billion acquisition of long-time wearable activity tracker category leader Fitbit. Provided the deal clears the DOJ — which is not a sure thing — the acquisition will close in 2020.
This acquisition is set to unite the second biggest wearable maker and one of the biggest tech giants in the world, and brings a swath of benefits to both companies (many of which the MobiHealthNews staff covered at length in a podcast discussion of the rumors).
Best Buy acquires Critical Signal Technologies. Tech retailer Best Buy completed its second acquisition in the senior care space in April, buying remote senior monitoring service Critical Signal Technologies (CST) for $125 million. The amount wasn’t disclosed originally but was in Best Buy’s quarterly SEC filing.
CST’s services fall in line with the senior-focused communications and in-home monitoring tools of GreatCall, which Best Buy also purchased last year. In addition, the company already offers in-home tech support capabilities for customers who require help with their electronics, potentially giving Best Buy an easy way to ensure that remote care products are being set up appropriately.
Elsevier acquires 3D4 Medical. Health analytics and education company Elsevier recently announced its plans to acquire Dublin-based 3D4Medical, a startup specializing in digital medical education tools. While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, Irish investor Malin, which owns 38% of the startup, said it would be collecting €17 million from the deal — indicating that Elsevier paid around €44.73 ($49.2 million USD).
3D4Medical makes digital tools that let students and medical professionals study 3D anatomical models. After the acquisition, 3D4Medical’s digital tools will be rolled into Elsevier’s suite of educational content, which already includes several anatomy tools.
BioTelemetry acquires Geneva Healthcare. Remote patient monitoring company BioTelemetry announced in January plans to acquire startup Geneva Healthcare, maker of a remote monitoring platform for implantable cardiac devices, for $45 million in upfront cash with additional performance-based earn-out considerations of no less than $20 million.
Biotelemetry will gain access to Geneva’s cloud-based platform, which has the ability to aggregate data from device manufacturer systems. This gives physicians a platform to remotely keep track all of their patients that have implantable cardiac devices such as pacemakers, defibrillators and loop recorders, while also providing the doctors with the results of routine checks and monitoring.
Source: Mobi Health News
