It was already shaping up to be a great year for digital health exits, and Samsung just kicked things up another notch by acquiring tech integration platform Xealth.
Xealth was the first spin out from Providence’s Digital Innovation Group back in 2017. The platform integrates 70+ partner solutions for everything from RPM to patient engagement into a single user interface that allows providers to manage them within their existing workflows.
- That not only allows clinicians to avoid juggling separate apps, but it also gives health systems an orchestration layer for controlling the data and painting a complete picture of their patients.
- Over 500 hospitals are already in Xealth’s network, and they’ll now be gaining access to Samsung’s connected care ecosystem when the acquisition gets finalized.
Samsung’s no newcomer to healthcare. It’s fresh off another acquisition with prenatal ultrasound startup Sonio, and has been loading up its wearables with FDA-cleared features like sleep apnea detection and irregular heart rhythm monitoring.
- It’s also developing a new health hub to let users share Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Ring data with their providers between visits, which would be a solid step toward making the data clinically useful – assuming they can get docs to use it.
- A standalone Samsung health hub sounded like a tough pitch without a way to plug into provider workflows, which happens to be exactly what Xealth brings to the table.
Samsung isn’t just acquiring an integration platform, it’s acquiring a bridge between its consumer ecosystem and actual healthcare delivery.
- Xealth CEO Mike McSherry said the move will enable “health data from wearables to fill in context that is missing to hospitals and bring more data analysis possibilities that were not available just with clinical records.”
- Decent enough reason for an acquisition, but then again so is hitting a growth ceiling and needing a Korean tech giant with deep pockets to help you keep scaling, which is the logic that McSherry gave to MedCityNews.
The Takeaway
Samsung and Xealth are keeping the M&A momentum rolling, and we’re already on pace to double 2024’s deal volume. So far this year we’ve seen an end to the IPO drought thanks to Hinge and Omada, Arcadia just got scooped up by a PE firm, and now Big Tech is coming in hot with platform plays. Who said there’s no exit in digital health?
