Vendor News: Alere Sells Off Analytics; Welltok Makes Acquisition

Alere, a Waltham, Mass.-based diagnostics vendor, continues to sell off its analytics and population health products, unloading Alere Analytics to Lowell, Mass.-based Persivia. 

Persivia is a new company in the field of chronic care management and precision medicine. It was founded by Mansoor Khan, Sc.D., the previous founder of Diagnosis One, a 2012 Healthcare Informatics Up-and-Comer. Diagnosis One was acquired by Alere in 2012 and renamed Alere Analytics in 2013. 

The selling of Alere Analytics is another move from Alere signifying its shift away from population health and analytics. In late 2014, Alere sold Alere Health to Optum and ended Alere Accountable Solutions (ACS). 

“Managing costs, especially around chronic diseases, is a top priority as more healthcare organizations take on and share the burden of risk in today’s new financial model of value-based purchasing,” Khan, the CEO of Persivia, said in a statement. “Providers are at risk for a growing number of penalties from Hospital-acquired Infections (HAIs), medication management and re-admissions to managing chronically ill patients and all quality measures associated with those activities. With the acquisition of Alere Analytics, from Alere Inc., Persivia is well positioned to help our customers meet these challenges head on.”

This week, Denver-based Welltok, which offers a consumer engagement platform, bought the Burlington, Mass.-based predictive analytics company, Predilytics.

Welltok is planning on integrating Predilytics' analytics capabilities into its platform. It says that the predictive analytics company has curated and analyzed data for 250 million consumers using 1,600 variables from consumer, healthcare and proprietary data resources. 

 “For too long, healthcare analytics has been focused on what the patient is doing, rather than the consumer. The data is largely clinical, retroactive and inadequate to understand the needs of consumers,” Jeff Margolis, chairman and chief executive officer for Welltok, said in a statement. “This is why Predilytics is so incredibly important – it strives to understand consumers and gain unparalleled insights on behavior and preferences before they engage with the healthcare system.”