June was a big month for big deals. New York-headquartered global investment firm KKR & Co. acquired Envision Healthcare and its AmSurg division in a deal valued at $9.9 billion. The all-cash transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2018, pending customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.
Nashville-based Cumberland Emerging Technologies Inc. (CET) and LSU Health New Orleans have entered into a collaboration agreement to develop new biomedical products based on research from LSU. With the shared goal of translating research discoveries into commercial products, the parties have agreed to combine their strengths to identify opportunities to develop. The potential development pipeline includes therapeutics for cardiovascular diseases, cancer, antifungals, as well as those emerging from drug repurposing. CET will pursue new sources of funding for these LSU Health New Orleans projects through the Small Business Technology Transfer and Small Business Innovation Research and other grant programs.
Nashville-based NaviHealth has new owners after Cardinal Health sold a majority stake to New York-based private equity firm Clayton, Dubiler & Rice. Cardinal will maintain 45 percent ownership in the technology-based care transitions company, which is led by Clay Richards.
Brentwood-based QualDerm Partners, which creates market-leading dermatology practice partnerships through affiliations and de novo development, recently announced Lebanon Dermatology has joined the company as an affiliate practice. This marks QualDerm's nineteenth partnership with physician-owned practices.
Community Health Systems continues divestitures. The Franklin-based hospital company, recently announced completion of the sale of three Tennessee hospitals - 225-bed Tennova - Dyersburg Regional in Dyersburg, 150-bed Tennova-Regional Jackson in Jackson, and 100-bed Tennova Volunteer Martin in Martin - and their associated assets to West Tennessee Healthcare. The company also completed the sale of 85-bed Tennova Healthcare - Jamestown to Rennova Health, Inc. and 60-bed Byrd Regional Hospital in Louisiana to subsidiaries of Allegiance Health Management. In late June, CHS announced a definitive agreement to sell the 291-bed AllianceHealth Deaconess hospital in Oklahoma City and its related businesses to INTEGRIS Health.
Last month, BerniePortal and Proliant announced a new integration between their respective benefit and payroll features. Proliant joins a growing network of payroll providers, insurance carriers and other software companies that integrate with BerniePortal's benefits feature. Employers who use BerniePortal can provide Proliant with API access to the benefit deduction information necessary to run payroll, minimizing the risk of error by exchanging benefit deduction information in real time.
