After a spectacular rise and equally precipitous downfall, patient engagement company Outcome Health is seeing its brand name disappear altogether.
On Tuesday, Cincinnati-based PatientPoint, also a provider of patient engagement solutions, announced that it is combining with the Chicago-based startup to create PatientPoint Health Technologies.
Together, the two former rivals could be valued at $600 million, including debt, according to an October article by Bloomberg. The CEO of PatientPing declined to comment on the terms of the transaction.
But even if the final price tag is $600 million, it is a far cry from Outcome Health’s prior valuation of $5 billion, which came crumbling down after evidence of fraud emerged in the company’s financial dealings.
PatientPoint Founder and CEO Mike Collette characterized the new deal as a “strategic transaction.”
In an email, Collette wrote:
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.
“By leveraging the best talent and technology from both PatientPoint and Outcome Health, we will be well-positioned to expand our suite of innovative patient engagement solutions to deliver improved patient outcomes and a more personalized, relevant patient experience as well as enhanced scale and efficiency for our healthcare sponsors.”
PatientPoint and Outcome Health both offer technology — like televisions, tablets and posters —that can be used to both educate patients and advertise to them.
At one point, it looked as though Outcome Health was dominating the market, but news of a fraud scheme perpetrated by its former executives and employees tanked its rise. In 2019, the company admitted to the scheme that involved selling advertising inventory that it did not have. It agreed to pay $70 million to victims of the scheme, largely pharmaceutical companies. In addition, Outcome Health’s co-founders, Rishi Shah and Shradha Agarwal, and other employees faced federal felony charges of fraud.
Now, PatientPoint Health will be able to corner the market.
Neither Matt McNally, who has led Outcome Health as CEO since 2018 nor Nandini Ramani, who was COO is joining PatientPoint Health.
Instead, Collette will lead as CEO and Pat O’Brien as CFO. Only two Outcome Health executives, Glenn Keighley and Sean Barden, both on the tech side, will continue on to the new company.
“We have great respect for the substantial provider network the Outcome Health team has built as well as the compelling solutions they have developed to enrich the patient’s point-of-care experience,” Collette said in a news release. “We also commend CEO Matt McNally and COO Nandini Ramani for leading Outcome Health’s incredible turnaround and rebuilding client trust.”
PatientPoint Health Technologies will be majority-owned by a group of investors, including funds managed by L Catterton and Littlejohn & Co., LLC.
Photo: Natee Meepian, Getty Images
