Two former UnitedHealth Group executives allegedly took trade secrets with them on the way out the door and used the information to found a pair of diabetes management startups, the conglomerate claims in a federal lawsuit.
UnitedHealth Group filed suit against Ken Ehlert, Mark Pollmann and other leaders of Lore Health and Sequelae in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota on Dec. 28. According to the plaintiffs, the defendants used confidential information from 500,000 documents obtained during their employment at UnitedHealth Group about Level2, the company's diabetes management platform, to establish a series of shell company competitors.
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UnitedHealth Group, Pollmann and Lore Health did not immediately respond to interview requests. Modern Healthcare was unable to reach Ehlert. Ehlert and Pollmann sued UnitedHealth Group themselves in 2022, alleging they were not adequately reimbursed for helping develop Level2 and questioning the basis for their terminations. The case closed less than a year later but public records of its conclusion are unavailable.
The plaintiffs in the new lawsuit want the court to shut down Lore Health and order the defendants to pay unspecific damages. The complaint alleges violations of laws governing trade secrets, unfair competition, conspiracy, unjust enrichment and contract interference.
According to the lawsuit, Ehlert and Pollmann worked at UnitedHealth Group from 2017 to 2021. The pair joined the company after it acquired their healthcare research and development company, SavvySherpa, for $46.8 million. Ehlert was UnitedHealth Group's chief scientific officer and Pollmann was chief technology officer for its Optum Labs unit.
Both executives signed employment agreements that required them to hold information about UnitedHealth’s business operations in "strict confidence” for five years and barred them from launching competing ventures within a year of separating from the company, the complaint says.
In its complaint, UnitedHealth Group portrays its former employees as disgruntled: “Motivated by anger and a desire for revenge, Ehlert and Pollmann formed a plan to take United’s confidential information and trade secrets and use them improperly.”
UnitedHealth Group's human resources department determined that Ehlert created a “culture of fear” and publicly demeaned colleagues and senior executives, the company alleges. Ehlert demanded the company hand over Level2 as a condition of his departure but UnitedHealth Group refused, according to the complaint.
Several months after leaving UnitedHealth Group, Pollmann allegedly received a hard drive from a former coworker containing confidential emails, financial statements, board meeting minutes and other data about Level2 . He and Ehlert subsequently used that information to establish Lore Health and Sequelae as rivals to Level2, according to UnitedHealth Group.
Lore Health and Sequelae essentially operate as “alter egos” of one another because they have non-functioning boards of directors and overlapping officers, similar missions, and the same dominant shareholder, according to the complaint. When Ehlert and Pollmann realized UnitedHealth was investigating their work last year, they disabled Sequelae’s website, according to the complaint.
