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Analysis 01 MAR 2019
Innovative new technology companies are likely the best hope for reversing spiraling costs in the USD 3tn healthcare market, panelists said at a New York conference this week.
However, finding the likely winners among the array of startups and established technology players presents formidable challenges, panelists said at the Association for Corporate Growth’s 11th Annual Healthcare Conference.
Investors who are looking for the one single innovation, such as how Uber Technologies and Lyft disrupted the transportation industry, are likely to be disappointed in the healthcare market, panelists said, noting that its myriad subsectors are all ripe for change.
“It really takes a number of different strategies” to find companies that achieve cost-savings and better patient outcomes, said panelist Andrew Adams, co-founder and partner at Oak HC/FT, a USD 1.1bn healthcare venture fund. “There is no silver bullet.”
Investors should seek companies that “look 10 years ahead on how they will interact with the healthcare ecosystem,” said panelist Ankur Agrawal, a partner in McKinsey & Co.’s healthcare systems and services practice. Efforts to rein in costs through innovation will be ever more imperative as the population ages and chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes surge, he said.
Oak HC/FT, for instance, is scouring the healthcare landscape to find innovations that reduce the “social determinants” of poor health among various populations, such as elderly people who may lack proper nutrition, housing and transportation, said Adams.
Hospital admission rates can be dramatically reduced with technologies that can augment housing, transportation and nutritional care for such populations, thus reducing costs, said Adams.
Panelists generally agreed that that recent consolidations, such as UnitedHealth [NYSE:UNH} buying Surgical Care Affiliates for USD 3.4bn and Humana's [NYSE:HUM] buying hospice care provider Curo Health Services for USD 1.4bn are a net positive for cutting the cost of patient care through overhead reductions and better referrals.
But smaller innovations, particularly in patient transportation, will also be an important factor for reducing costs, panelists said.
Todd Rudsenske, a Cain Brothers healthcare banker, said Uber and Lyft are already becoming significant players in medical transportation for patients unable to drive.
SafeRide Health, a medical transportation startup, which received a recent investment from Fresenius Medical Care [NYSE:FMS], could reduce hospital admission rates among dialysis patients by preventing regular treatment from being interrupted by a lack of transportation, he noted.
Companies that tackle burdensome employer pharmaceutical costs, now largely negotiated through an opaque, “black box” system involving pharmacy benefit managers, is also a ripe area for cost-cutting innovation, according to Oak’s Adams.
The fund recently led a USD 20m investment into a Boston-based startup called WithMe Health, a “medication guidance company” which aims to replace PBMs for employers, said Adams. Oak also looked at Pillpack, another innovative company in the drug supply chain, that was bought last year by Amazon.com [NASDAQ:AMZN], he added.
Another ripe area for controlling costs is to align incentives for insurance payers and doctors to deliver care based on overall quality rather than the quantity of services, a much-discussed “fee for value versus fee for care” model, panelists said.
Oak, for instance, has invested in tech-enabled companies including Paladina Health, VillageMD and One Medical, all three of which look to incentive quality care regimes among various constituents. “Tighter integration and aligned incentives will drive better outcomes,” said Adams.
Although Travelocity helped transform airline and hotel pricing and Quicken Loans upended mortgage lending, the healthcare system is unlikely to ever be fully driven by consumers, panelists said.
“One view is that consumers will drive healthcare, but another is that it will always be driven by physicians,” said Agrawal. Because of the specialist knowledge that physicians bring, “I don’t foresee it ever being a Travelocity model.”
by Dane Hamilton
Healthcare Editor, Mergermarket & DealReporter, divisions of Acuris
Mar 04 2019