UnitedHealth Group Inc., the world’s largest healthcare company by revenue, has purchased DivvyDose, the Illinois-based online pharmacy startup, for about $300 million, sources told CNBC.
Founded five years ago, DivvyDose is a specialized pharmacy focused on patients with complicated medication needs. Customers get pre-sorted individual packs, with dates and times marked when they should be taken.
Talks between the two companies were previously reported by Bloomberg.
A UnitedHealth spokesperson declined to comment.
CNBC reported giant retailers and health plans are acquiring online pharmacy startups as a way to make it easier for patients to access medicines. In 2018, Amazon Inc. bought PillPack, the online pharmacy, for $1 billion, as the eCommerce giant expands into the healthcare sector.
In June, Walmart reportedly paid some $200 million to buy key assets from CareZone, a Seattle-based health-technology startup that promises to manage prescription drugs for patients.
The transactions for Amazon and Walmart bought a way into the $300 billion pharmacy market, the network reported. UnitedHealth and other healthcare organizations see the benefit in providing patients who need their medicines delivered in easy-to-use packets.
“I can only speculate that these pharmacies have very strong patient loyalty,” Vinod Melvani, a pharmaceutical executive and consultant, told CNBC.
Earlier this year, UnitedHealth started work on getting around $2 billion in payments to doctors and other health professionals, the insurance giant announced.
The move promises to ease the financial stress the coronavirus has put on the U.S. economy, particularly to end furloughing of some health professionals over the past few weeks amid a cash crunch for healthcare organizations.
The other impact of COVID-19 has been to add urgency to the healthcare sector’s digitization roadmaps. While it’s impossible for all areas of healthcare services to migrate online, but for those that could, accelerating the digital migration took on far greater importance than ever before.
Bill Marvin, CEO at J.P. Morgan-owned InstaMed, told PYMNTS the industry’s embrace of telemedicine technologies has opened the door for the sector to enhance the online payments experience for patients. While adoption of these solutions has escalated, the complexities of the healthcare system means inertia from the pandemic to digitize will continue into the future.
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