The first two days of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco brought plenty of declarations from CEOs on stage that they are looking for deals, which could signal a strong year for mergers, acquisitions and partnerships.
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Here's what some of them had to say:
Cigna CEO David Cordani
Cigna Group is on the lookout for acquisitions that could expand its in-home care offerings and insurance services. CEO David Cordani said there's interest in acquiring service providers of specialty care in the home, virtual care or provider management services organizations. “Our capital-light franchise operating model gives us plenty of flexibility to invest in the future,” he said.
CommonSpirit Health CEO Wright Lassiter
“We will have a greater emphasis on non-acute assets, on ambulatory care and continuum of care,” CEO Wright Lassiter said. “We will continue to expand outside of the acute environment and continue to think about revenue diversification and what is the best way for CommonSpirit to diversify around our traditional set of business.”
GE Healthcare CEO Peter Arduini
The company announced plans Monday to acquire MIM Software, an AI-enabled image analysis and workflow company. CEO Peter Arduini said the deal illustrates its M&A strategy. “[It has] the ability to actually be the missing link in our personalized medicine and personalized care strategy, as well as turning this into more of a recurring revenue source with the software-as-service model; it ticks all the boxes for us. And there are plenty of other interesting opportunities like this to build upon our strategy.”
GoHealth Urgent Care CEO Todd Latz
CEO Todd Lantz said the company sees more opportunities for deals and wants to keep opening sites within existing relationships. “We don’t dabble. If we’re in a market, we’re going to be in there with a lot of scale,” Latz said.
Novant Health CEO Carl Armato
CEO Carl Armato said the provider is looking for partners as it expands across the coastal Carolinas. “I’m confident that a health system can’t do it alone,” Armato said. "We want to come together, not only to partner but to stop talking about sustainability. We want to thrive."
Meanwhile, one health system made it clear it's sitting on the sidelines.
Northwestern Medicine Dr. Howard Chrisman, president and CEO
President and CEO Dr. Howard Chrisman said the system is not concerned with market consolidation and is not planning any mergers or acquisitions. “We wanted to achieve a certain scale, but at this stage we no longer believe bigger is better; better is better,” Chrisman said.
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