mobile health acquisitions and mergers

Six 2013 mobile health mergers and acquisitions

By Brian Dolan

We’re just a few months into 2013 and already there have been announced at least a half dozen M&A deals — large and small — in mobile health. While one rumor floated around that WellDoc would be acquired early this year — one report said Alere would buy it — so far that prediction has proven unfounded. A number of companies, however, have been snapped up. This past week alone has brought about the announcement of three acquisition deals.

Here’s a quick round-up of the digital health M&A deals so far in 2013:

January 2013 — athenahealth buys Epocrates: athenahealth, a provider of cloud-based EHR and practice management software, announced a definitive agreement to acquire Epocrates, a popular mobile medical app provider, for about $293 million in cash at the beginning of the year. The deal will lead to a combined company that can leverage Epocrates’ mobile expertise and athena’s cloud-based network to develop “new mobile applications that deliver high-value information to the clinical community when, where, and how they want it,” according to the companies. Moving forward athena will work with the Epocrates team to develop “new mobile workflows” that initially might include ones that focus on care coordination, provider-to-provider communication, and patient engagement tools.

February 2013 — Jawbone acqui-hires Massive Health: San Francisco-based Jawbone, a company best known for fashion-minded Bluetooth headsets and iPod speakers, acquired mobile health startup Massive Health and design firm Visere for an undisclosed sum to help it refine and improve its own wearable health device, UP. Massive Health had been relatively quiet since it first launched in late 2010, but it did publicly launch one app, called The Eatery, and quietly tested out another diabetes management-related app, which was at one time called Penguine. Massive Health raised $2.25 million from a number of investors.

February 2013 — Practice Fusion acqui-hires 100Plus: Practice Fusion, developer of a free, web-based EHR system, has acquired consumer health app startup 100Plus for an undisclosed sum. 100Plus was co-founded by data analytics pro Chris Hogg and Practice Fusion CEO Ryan Howard in late 2011. 100Plus was the first company to leverage Practice Fusion’s data set, and it was also based out of the Practice Fusion offices in downtown San Francisco. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. While 100Plus will continue working on consumer-facing apps, they will also begin focusing on apps that help patients and providers better work together.

April 2013 — Jawbone acquires BodyMedia: San Francisco-based Jawbone acquired Pittsburgh-based BodyMedia for an disclosed sum. BodyMedia CEO Christine Robins will stay on as general manager of the BodyMedia brand and VP of Health and Wellness Business Development at Jawbone, and Jawbone will continue to sell and support existing BodyMedia products.

April 2013 — Health Reviser snaps up FitPal: Seattle, Washington-based app developer Health Reviser, has acquired FitPal, developer of fitness apps like Health Snapshot, Biological Age Test, Stress Sweeper, Stress Monitor, and Fitness Test.

May 2013 — Qualcomm Life buys HealthyCircles: Qualcomm Life, the Qualcomm subsidiary that offers the 2net platform and hub for connecting home remote monitoring devices to the cloud, announced that it is acquiring San Diego-based HealthyCircles, a software-as-a-service startup that helps different care providers share patient information securely in a hospital setting. HealthyCircles Founder and Chief Strategic Officer Dr. James Mault, who was also one of the founding architects Microsoft HealthVault, will join the Qualcomm Life team as Chief Medical Officer. The companies are not disclosing the financials of the deal.