Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Athenahealth, Elliott Deal Wraps Up Months-Long, Contentious Process To Get Health Records Company To Sell
Reuters: Veritas Capital, Elliott To Buy Athenahealth For $5.7 Billion
Private equity firm Veritas Capital and hedge fund Elliott Management are buying Athenahealth Inc for about $5.7 billion, the U.S. healthcare software maker said on Monday. The all-cash deal values Athenahealth at $135 per share, representing a premium of 12.2 percent to the stock's closing price on Friday. (11/12)
The Wall Street Journal: Athenahealth To Sell Itself For $5.47 Billion
Elliott Management, which acquired a nearly 9% stake in Athenahealth in 2017, offered to buy the rest of the company and take it private in May. The firm’s offer was to buy the rest of the company for $160 a share, which valued the company at $6.5 billion. The company had announced in June that its board was going to start looking at strategic alternatives for the firm. At that time, co-founder Jonathan Bush stepped down as president and chief executive amid takeover pressure from Elliott. Jeff Immelt, the former CEO of General Electric Co., was also named executive chairman of Athenahealth. (Prang, 11/12)
Bloomberg: Athenahealth Will Sell To Veritas, Elliott For $5.7 Billion
While it’s not the $160 Elliott had initially proposed, investors may be happy enough. “The business had notably deteriorated,” said Ross Muken, an analyst at Evercore ISI. Muken lauded the choice of Segert to run the business after the close, saying he “has a long history of IT turnarounds and we believe this will be much easier for Athenahealth to undergo in the private markets.” (Hammond and Deveau, 11/12)
The Associated Press: Athenahealth Fetches $5.7 Billion Cash Buyout Offer
Athenahealth, based in Watertown, Massachusetts, makes medical record, revenue cycle and care coordination products and delivers most of it through the cloud. On Friday, it reported third-quarter earnings that topped analyst expectations, but its revenue fell short of the average forecast on Wall Street. The latest athenahelath bid offers "a decent valuation for what has increasingly appeared to be a struggling business," Leerink analyst David Larsen said in a research note. (11/12)
In other news from the health industry —
Stat: Five Things We Learned From Moderna’s Pre-IPO Information Dump
Moderna Therapeutics’ long-awaited IPO filing means two things: The company is one step closer to going public, and the world finally gets a look under the hood at the famously secretive firm. On that second point, we now get to gawk at executive pay figures, marvel at just how many bankers are involved, and speculate on what a (very brief) Food and Drug Administration clinical hold might mean for the future. Here’s what we learned from Moderna’s IPO filing. (Garde, 11/12)
Stat: Driver, A Startup Seeking To Connect Patients With Clinical Trials, Shuts Down
Driver, an ambitious startup marketing an app to match cancer patients with clinical trials, has shut down after running out of money just weeks following its high-profile launch. The company let go of all of its approximately 85 employees on Oct. 16, Driver’s co-founders confirmed to STAT. About 60 percent of those employees worked at Driver’s headquarters in San Francisco; the rest were based in Shanghai, New York, and Boise, Idaho. (Robbins, 11/12)
