Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I get festive for the holidays. In this episode, Jess asks me about Walgreens and its new partnership with FedEx for next day prescription delivery and with Verily to help patients with prescription adherence. She also asks me about blockchain startup PokitDok getting its assets acquired by Change Healthcare. Lots of job changes are happening as well. Amy Abernethy, the chief medical officer at Flatiron Health, was named Deputy Commissioner of the FDA. Rasu Shrestha, who was previously at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, is the new chief strategy officer of Atrium Health. Finally, Zane Burke, who recently stepped down as president of Cerner, was just hired as Livongo’s new CEO, while Glen Tullman remains executive chairman of the company. Dr. Jennifer Schneider was also promoted from the company’s chief medical officer to president. We have one more episode of Health in 2 Point 00 for 2018, so be on the lookout for our year-end wrap-up. —Matthew Holt
A Health Tech’s Secret Weapon: The People Under The Hood
The recently-announced acquisition of the oncology data company Flatiron Health by Roche for $2.1B represents a robust validation of the much-discussed but infrequently-realized hypothesis that technology entrepreneurs who can turn health data into actionable insights can capture significant value for this accomplishment.
Four questions underlying this deal (a transaction first reported, as usual, by Chrissy Farr) are: (1) What is the Flatiron business model? (2) What makes Flatiron different from other health data companies? (3) Why did Roche pay so much for this asset? (4) What are the lessons other health tech companies might learn?
The Flatiron Business Model
To a first approximation, Flatiron has a model that can be seen as similar to tech platforms like Google and Facebook – delight (or at least offer a useful service to) front-end users, and then sell the data generated to other businesses. For Flatiron, the front-end users are oncologists (mostly community, some academic), and the data customers are pharma companies. In contrast to Google (and also in contrast to the less successful Practice Fusion, recently acquired at a loss), Flatiron doesn’t sell access to front-end users themselves (e.g. through targeted ads), but rather access to de-identified, aggregated clinical information.
Success of this model requires that the Flatiron platform is attractive to oncology practices, who must feel that they’re getting distinct value from it and believe that it helps them fulfill their primary mission of taking care of cancer patients. If this is true, then the Flatiron platform will enjoy continued traction from its current base, and may more easily win over new users (including practices that use a different EMR system, like Epic, but still want access to the Flatiron network and analytics).
Health in 2 point 00, Episode 2
Here’s the second episode of Health in 2 point 00, hosted by Jessica DaMassa. She asks me as many questions as I can answer in two minutes. Hope you enjoy it! And if you have questions please email them to us or leave them in the comments–Matthew Holt
