When Teladoc first announced plans for its $18.5 billion merger with Livongo, the two companies touted the potential for pairing telehealth with a platform to manage chronic conditions. Now, the duo have made their first combined sale to insurer Florida Blue’s parent company GuideWell Health, they announced on Monday at HLTH.
“There’s a lot of takers. There’s a lot of interest,” Livongo CEO Glen Tullman said, noting there had been an uptick in activity since the two companies announced their merger.
Florida Blue already offered Teladoc’s services to its members, and Livongo had hoped to bring the insurer on as a customer. After the merger was announced, the cross sale moved quickly.
Through the new agreement, 50,000 of Florida Blue’s members will now have access to Livongo’s platform for managing diabetes and other conditions, covered with no co-pay. Data from patients’ blood glucose monitor or connected blood pressure cuff would be shared with their physician.
“It’s a big win. We’re super excited about it, and it’s the first example of why this merger makes so much sense,” Tullman said. “In the new world, you might be talking to a Teladoc physician. She might say, ‘I notice you have diabetes, we can enable you to get strips sent to your home at no cost. They’re delivered automatically, and I can see your readings in real time.’ That makes the physicians really happy because they have better information than they ever had before.”
The two companies still have lots of work to do in the biggest digital health deal to date. They’re still in the process of combining their businesses, which are expected to bring in a combined $1.3 billion in revenue in 2020 and cover 70 million members by the end of 2020.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
But both executives seemed enthusiastic about the possibilities that come with the merger.
For Livongo, it’s the opportunity to grow worldwide in Teladoc’s footprint. Teladoc currently offers its services in 50 countries, an expansion that would have taken Livongo years alone.
For Teladoc, in addition to having a new service for its members, it also gets a wealth of data from Livongo’s connected devices and app.
“When you walk into a physician’s office and they take your blood pressure, they’re getting one reading at one point in time,” Teladoc CEO Jason Gorevic said. “By integrating these two companies with 750 million data elements in the Livongo dataset, and 10 million virtual visits and all of the data that comes out of those virtual visits just this year, that is a dataset that has never been had before.”
Photo credit: Natee Meepian, Getty Images
