A year after announcing its intention to sell most of the assets of IBM Watson Health, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) finally reached an agreement with Francisco Partners. Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the second half of 2022, were not disclosed. The gutting of Watson Health comes less than two months after IBM spun off its $19 billion managed technology services business, Kyndryl Holdings as a standalone company.
With the agreement to purchase Physimax Technologies Ltd. in its rearview mirror, Dariohealth Corp. passes another milestone with its third tuck-in deal in a year. Physimax, a provider of computer vision technology for musculoskeletal (MSK) screening and predictive risk assessment, joins Psyinnovations Inc. (dba Wayforward) and Upright Technologies Ltd. as tuck-ins for the rapidly growing digital health company. The latest deal is by far the smallest. The terms call for the issuance of 256,660 shares of Dariohealth’s common stock, valued at Wednesday’s closing price of $9.65 per share at just under $2.5 million, plus a cash payment of $500,000.
Acutus Medical Inc. provided highlights of a corporate restructuring along with preliminary unaudited revenues for the fourth quarter and year ended Dec. 31, 2021. The company “will prioritize maximizing console utilization and procedure volume growth in targeted geographic regions as well as a more focused scope of product development initiatives.” The restructuring will include the layoff of more than 50 staff members and reduction of manufacturing costs designed to produce annualized operating expense savings of $23 million to $25 million in 2022.
Sema4 Holdings Corp. sent a bold message to the market with a definitive agreement to acquire Genedx Inc. from Opko Health Inc. for $623 million. The deal comes as Sema4 winds down its COVID-19 testing by the end of March. The company has been one of the largest testing organizations in Connecticut since its first contract in May 2020, but has lately come under scrutiny because of an investment by Annie Lamont, the governor’s wife.
With the evidence that sex and gender both significantly affect the course of many diseases and the function of medical devices rapidly mounting, the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) released its strategic plan to better understand these differences.
In a lively discussion at the 40th annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, panelists from leading diagnostics companies debated the best way to screen for cancer – and whether diagnostic testing does more harm than good in some circumstances. Kevin Conroy, CEO of Exact Sciences Corp., noted that he expected liquid biopsies to have an “enormous impact on making earlier cancer detection a routine part of medical care” with his company currently developing a blood-based test for colon cancer as well as a multicancer test and one for minimal residual disease.
Intuitive Surgical Inc. benefited from keen interest in resuming surgeries during pandemic troughs and hospitals investing in its Da Vinci robotic system in preparation for a more endemic phase of COVID-19, Intuitive CEO Gary Guthart said in a presentation at the J.P. Morgan 40th Annual Healthcare Conference on Jan. 12. The company’s unaudited preliminary fourth quarter and full year 2021 results also showed strong growth in procedure volumes – 19% year-over-year compared to 2020 and 13% compared to 2019. Still, Intuitive reported that “during 2021, COVID-19 resurgences continued to impact Da Vinci procedure volumes. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the company’s business has, and continues to, differ by geography and region.”
In a speech on Jan. 13, President Joe Biden revealed plans to purchase an additional 500 million at-home COVID-19 tests, bringing the total number the administration expects to provide for free to American households to 1 billion. In addition, Biden said the administration would distribute free “high quality masks.” On Wednesday, the administration said it would provide 5 million rapid COVID-19 tests and 5 million lab-based PCR tests to schools each month to support screening testing and test-to-stay programs.
Abbott Laboratories received FDA 510(k) clearance for the Ensite X EP system with Ensite omnipolar technology, the company’s cardiac mapping platform. The system, which is used to identify and treat abnormal heart rhythms such as atrial fibrillation, produces detailed three-dimensional maps of the heart to guide physicians performing ablation procedures.
A panel of leaders in women’s health at the 2022 edition of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference addressed the challenges and benefits of digital health and new apps in enabling women to be the “chief medical officers” of their families’ health and to take the necessary steps to improve their own. The panel included moderator Lynne Chou O’Keefe, founder and managing partner of Define Ventures; Apple Inc.’s Vice President of Health Sumbul Ahmad Desai; Veronica Gillispie-Bell, assistant professor, Ochsner Health System; Found CEO Sarah Jones Simmer; Michelle Williams, dean of faculty at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and Tia Inc. CEO and co-founder Carolyn Witte.
