Arlington health-tech company Surescripts LLC has acquired Minneapolis-based analytics startup ActiveRadar Inc. in a deal the local firm says adds an important dimension to its electronic prescription service for health systems and pharmacies.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Surescripts, a health-tech company that’s been evolving its services over more than two decades, facilitates the sharing of health information to improve care and cut down costs. It does that through the Surescripts Network Alliance, which comprises doctors and other clinical providers, health systems, health plans, electronic health records vendors, pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs.
Surescripts’ Real-Time Prescription Benefit, as it’s called, arms doctors and other clinical providers with the information they need to help their patients get on their medications without hitting hurdles — such as if a health plan doesn’t cover a drug prescribed by the doctor.
ActiveRadar, whose analytics platform identifies different drug options and pricing, brings “a complementary solution” to Surescripts, Dr. Lynne Nowak, chief data and analytics officer at Surescripts, told me in an email.
“Having this information at the point of care can help clinicians and patients make better-informed decisions about the medication therapy that is both clinically appropriate and most affordable,” Nowak said. “This can eliminate rework that happens when a patient is unable to afford their medications — helping to alleviate the administrative burdens driving clinician burnout — and getting patients started on their treatments sooner.”
The transaction positions Surescripts to “make it simpler and faster to get patients started on the best medication for them,” Surescripts CEO Frank Harvey said in a statement. It also aims to better address nonadherence — when people don’t stick with their medications, sometimes because they’re too pricey at the pharmacy. That has an estimated $500 billion impact to the U.S. health care system each year, and can lead to preventable hospitalizations and deaths.
Surescripts counts about 700 employees across three offices in addition to Arlington: Minneapolis; Hillsboro, Oregon; and Raleigh, North Carolina. The company did not immediately disclose the number of ActiveRadar employees, but a spokesperson said all are joining Surescripts and will work on Nowak’s team. Data firm PitchBook pegs ActiveRadar’s headcount at 16.
Surescripts reported that as of October 2023, more than 777,000 prescribers use its tool, and that it’s saved patients an average of $61 on traditional medications and $428 on specialty medications. The company also says it processed 2.34 billion electronic prescriptions through pharmacies across the country in 2022 alone. ActiveRadar’s software, meanwhile, has reduced costs for both employers and employees by up to 20%, according to the company.
The Surescripts spokesperson did not return requests for comment about Surescripts’ ownership structure. The Washington Business Journal has previously reported that the company’s owners include Express Scripts and CVS Caremark, both major PBMs, and the National Association of Community Pharmacies and the National Association of Chain Drug Stores.
Frank Harvey, a pharmacist by training, assumed the top slot at Surescripts in mid-2022 to succeed Tom Skelton, who retired after eight years as its CEO. Surescripts made headlines earlier this year when it settled a 2019 lawsuit with the Federal Trade Commission over what regulators called “anticompetitive conduct” in the e-prescribing market.
ActiveRadar launched in 2010 as a unit within grocery retailer Safeway, dubbed Safeway Health, to help employees save money on prescription drugs. It then sold to New York private equity firm Kinderhook Industries LLC, when Safeway merged with grocery chain Albertson LLC in 2015, and spun out as RxTE Health before rebranding.
