EVERSANA buys digital drug-price marketplace firm Waltz Health
Waltz Health CEO and cofounder and new EVERSANA CEO Mark Thierer speaks on a panel at HLTH 2022.
Pharma commercialisation services provider EVERSANA (pharmaphorum's parent company) has acquired Waltz Health, a Chicago digital health company offering AI-driven marketplaces to lower overall drug costs. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
As part of the deal, Waltz Health CEO and co-founder Mark Thierer - who has previously led OptumRx and Catamaran - will become CEO of EVERSANA. Outgoing CEO Jim Lang will continue to serve on EVERSANA's Board of Directors.
Waltz Health launched in 2022 with Marketplace Search, a whitelabelled search engine pharmacies can offer to their customers to find the lowest cost drugs among the many discount programmes available. Since then, the company has launched a number of other tools based on the same AI prescription-routing capabilities. The company has raised around $54 million in three rounds of funding.
Waltz Health brings a number of capabilities to EVERSANA that will expand the company's efforts to create end-to-end commercialisation services for pharma by connecting life sciences companies directly with payers.
“By combining EVERSANA’s pharma services with Waltz’s technology-enabled payer solutions, we’re creating a unified platform that connects life sciences innovation directly to the organisations and individuals we’re meant to serve," Thierer said in a statement. "This model is built to accelerate access, improve outcomes, and deliver smarter, more transparent drug commercialisation at every step.”
Both companies have been heavily involved with the direct-to-patient trend in pharma, and the merger is expected to supercharge that model. EVERSANA also gains access to Waltz Health's specialty pharma network Waltz Connect, which launched last year.
The companies hope the new combined company will be able to meet the moment at a time when drug pricing is a major issue facing both consumers and pharma companies, with pressure from governments to lower prices at an all-time high.
“This combination brings together the scale and services of EVERSANA with Waltz Health’s payer-integrated platforms to create a company purpose-built for the future of life sciences,” said Thierer. “Together, we are launching a new-to-the-world model that directly connects manufacturers to patients and payers, delivering significant cost savings and improved patient outcomes to the healthcare system.”
