Six competitor CEOs and one ex-CMO discuss the biggest-ever digital health merger
By JESS DAMASSA & MATTHEW HOLT
It was the news that stunned the world of health tech. And us! So we had seven of Teladoc and Livongo’s biggest competitors weigh-in on what the merger means for telehealth, digital health, the future of health care delivery–and their businesses! You’ll hear from the CEOs of Omada, Ginger, One Drop, Vida, Lark & Cloudbreak, with some spicy commentary from Lyle Berkowitz who was, until recently, CMO at MD Live. From reaction to the merger to speculation about how this will impact the future of digital health funding, fasten your seat belts for some impactful and fun infotainment about all the implications of the deal.
Today, a special Health in 2 Point 00. Jessica DaMassa asks me about the biggest news in public digital health companies ever: this morning’s merger of Teladoc and Livongo. We discuss the deal, the implications for digital health, what’s next for Continuous Clinics, whether our T-Shirts will become a collectors item, and of course what about our book club on August 19! —Matthew Holt
Even before Covid19, virtual care for chronic conditions was a hot and competitive area, with the heat turned up by Livongo Health’s IPO last year and big funding rounds for companies like Omada Health, Virta Health, and One Drop. Another contender in the space, Vida Health, has been best known for taking a “platform” approach to chronic condition management before “platforming out” became the-move-to-make for scaling health tech companies. Their digital health biz actually started out with a “whole health approach” to helping patients manage all their conditions at once, integrating care for diabetes, hypertension, COPD, high cholesterol, mental health conditions, and more from the get-go. Contrast that to some of their biggest competitors, who have adapted to that approach by adding on treatments for co-morbidities as their core businesses evolved.
Is there a benefit to starting out with a holistic care model that those who build it along the way can’t capture? We caught up with Vida Health’s founder & CEO, Stephanie Tilenius, to find out what advantage starting out as a platform play has brought to her business, which just closed a $25M funding round in April and is now available to more than 1.5 million people through employers and health plans.
How will the company scale from here? How will they remain competitive in such a crowded space? Stephanie talks through some of Vida Health’s post-pandemic plans AND how lessons learned from her “previous life” as an exec in Big Tech during that industry’s growth era of the 2000s & 2010s has shaped her thinking about the uptake of technology in healthcare. Not only did Stephanie work at eBay, PayPal, and Google during the birth of the online payment era, BUT she also helped take an online pharmacy company (Planet Rx) public during the dotcom boom.
Health tech deals are just back to back this week! On Episode 139 of Health In 2 Point 00, Jess asks me about Withings getting $60M in a new round to develop their connected devices & apps products, Neurovalens raising €5.5M to grow their headset technology that helps with obesity, insomnia, diabetes, & more, Pocket Health raising $6.5M to build out their image sharing platform within in EHRs, and Sidecar Health raises $20M for their price transparency direct pay option. I also talks about Livongo’s new DPP program which provides users with diet tips & coaching sessions to offset diabetes in high-risk populations —Matthew Holt
Matthew Holt and Jessica DaMassa gave a talk at the “Going Digital: Behavioral Health Tech Conference” on June 17, 2020. They spoke about how technology is evolving the mental health space, along with their thoughts on where the future of the industry is headed.
Jess & Matthew first start off with their “Health in 2 Point 00” segment, discussing all of the funding deals in the mental health space, from Headspace to Mindstrong raising money in Q1, to Kaiser rolling out MyStrength to its members.
Then they jump into a deeper dive segment, where they discuss how the money is being distributed in the mental health space, and how startups are coming up with creative solutions to package their services. Some mental health companies are wrapping solutions into other digital health platforms that already manage chronic conditions, like Livongo & Omada, others are working to directly address and treat mental health issues, and some are developing digital therapeutic solutions to manage mental health problems. As this part of the industry grows, Matthew & Jess predict how the mental health tech space will change & develop with increasing demand, more investments, and a lot more innovative tools to serve the population’s needs.
Zoya Khan is the EIC of The Health Care Blog & a Strategy Manager at SMACK.health
Today on Episode 134 of Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I cover Livongo’s stock price swinging, Brian Dolan’s PPP “Black List” for Health Tech Startups, and Oak Street Health & GoHealth filing their S-1’s. We also get Matthew’s take on Walgreen’s deal with Village MD to become a primary care center, and Doctor on Demand closing a $75M round, bringing its total to $235M in funding —Matthew Holt
With about one month left on the existing 90-day Public Health Emergency that’s eased regulations and improved reimbursement to help make telehealth, remote monitoring, and other virtual care services easier for providers to implement and patients to use, health tech companies across the US are wondering what it will take to make these changes permanent. One of digital health’s few ‘DC Insiders,’ Livongo Health’s VP of Government Affairs, Leslie Krigstein, gets us up-to-speed on what’s happening on Capitol Hill and what we can expect moving forward. What changes will (literally) require an Act of Congress? And what can be handled by HHS and CMS? From codes and co-pays to e-visits and licensing, Leslie breaks it down and tells us whether or not we can continue to expect a ‘health tech-friendly’ agenda in Washington DC.
Today on Episode 122 of Health in 2 Point 00, Jess asks me about LetsGetChecked raising $71M for at-home testing, Vida Health raising $25M for virtual chronic-conditions-management programs, Medable securing $25M for clinical trials, and Livongo publishing their Q1 earnings report (and their stock rising 10% days before the report was released!). I am excited to see their CFO, Lee Shapiro, go on a buying spree in the space now — Matthew Holt
Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I run through a lot of telehealth investments including Doctor Anywhere raising $27 million, 98point6 raising $43 million, Tyto Care raising $50 million, SilverCloud Health raising $16 million, SteadyMD raising $6 million, and Aktiia raising $6 million. In addition, there’s a company called Air Doctor which matches people when they’re traveling to doctors on the ground which raised $7.8 million despite the inauspicious timing. On the flip side, there have been a slew of layoffs in the space, and Jess and I give our $.02 on Rock Health’s Q1 fundraising report which was just released. Don’t miss our tag-team interview of Livongo’s Glen Tullman, and check out these episodes in podcast form on Spotify and iTunes. —Matthew Holt
Fresh off of a press junket that included talking to Jim Cramer on CNBC & hanging with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business News, Livongo Health’s Glen Tullman stopped by THCB to talk about the impact of #covid19 (& more) on health tech. Jessica DaMassa and Matthew Holt tag-team interviewed him on Weds 8th April. (Full transcript is below the video)
Here is the transcript:
Matthew:
Hi, this is Matthew Holt from The Health Care Blog.
