Top 3 news of the week

SPAC heating up in the healthcare area, but is the hype real?

• Amazon forges ahead with its health care solution for its employees, now opening that up to other patients in other states. Currently, Amazon care is only available in the Seattle, Washington area (https://amazon.care), but Amazon care is looking to expand in 17 different states. 

• Digital health "blank check" or "shell" companies are everywhere. 2021 have so far generated 137+ SPACs, raising over $42 billion. Some of the healthcare SPACS generating attention are:

  • BFFL (Butterfly Network), a mobile "whole-body imaging" device.

  • CLOV (Clover Health) is selling Medicare Advantage plans, focusing on customer experience and leveraging technology (ML, AI, etc.) to achieve better outcomes. 

  • HAAC (Health Assurance Acquisition Corp) partner with healthcare businesses by utilizing technology to create consumer-centric, data-driven, cloud-based solutions that can both bend the cost of care and improve wellness.

• What happened to MDLive's ambition to go IPO? Cigna's subsidiary Evernorth is acquiring telehealth provider MDLive. 

As you can sell, technology is the standard tool as the differentiator.