Portfolio News

Physera’s telehealth MSK therapy platform raises $8M

Physera, an app-based platform for musculoskeletal exercises and remote consultations with physical therapists, has raised $8 million in a Series A round led by BlueCross Blueshield Venture Partners. The company has now raised a total of $10 million. Other funders, either in this round or previously, include Halle Tecco of Rock Health, Innovation Endeavors, Lux Capital, Expa, Slow Ventures, iD Ventures, J-Angels, and other unnamed angel investors. Physera’s app, available for free on Android and iOS, offers a range of exercises to help users reduce musculoskeletal pain,...

Microsoft and Kyruus Form Strategic Partnership to Empower Healthcare Systems

Microsoft has been looking to widen its already substantial footprint in the healthcare space. Recently it has done so by forming a strategic partnership with patient access technology innovator Kyruus. Kyruus’s ProviderMatch solution, which is now used at more than 500 hospitals across the U.S., will be integrated with Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 customer relationship management (CRM) software. By partnering with Kyruus in this way, hospitals and health systems can integrate obtain embedded provider search as well as direct EHR scheduling capabilities in the Dynamics 365 CRM. The...

Everything we know about Haven, the Amazon joint venture to revamp health care

In January of 2018, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and J.P. Morgan announced that they wanted to address the issues of rising health care costs for their employees and a lack of improvement in care. Now, after rampant speculation about what this partnership could mean for the healthcare industry, the project is finally hiring its executive team. The project, now called Haven, has a CEO and a team of about 12 people. But speculation still remains about what the company will do to renovate the U.S. healthcare system. Haven’s...

2019 PBMI Excellence Award Winners

The Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute, a provider of research and education on drug cost management, recently awarded eight organizations for their exceptional contributions across the pharmacy management continuum. These organizations have created highly effective programs in the areas of care management strategies, cost containment, opioid management strategies, and quality improvement. One of those winners was McKesson Ventures portfolio company Truveris, an awardee in the Cost Containment category for its TruGuard® solution for pharmacy benefit manager contract oversight and risk mitigation. Using proprietary Truveris technology, TruGuard re-adjudicates...

House Subcommittee Takes Dim View of Healthcare Consolidation

The House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee recently discussed hospital and health system consolidation and its effect on the general population. The vast majority of the discussion was critical of mergers among hospitals and other healthcare companies. Although the public is often told that consolidation will provide improved efficiency and higher-quality care, the reality is that efficiency and quality care rarely result. Since both Democrats and Republicans have expressed interest in addressing payer and provider consolidation and anticompetitive concerns about the pharmacy, this discussion could signal how...