BioScrip gets serious about home infusion

ELMSFORD, N.Y. - BioScrip announced last week that it plans to acquire Cincinnati, Ohio-based CarePoint Partners for $223 million.

Under the deal, BioScrip will gain approximately 20,500 patients, bringing its total to 100,000, mostly in the eastern half of the country.

“With the market as robust as it is right now, they are wise to do an opportunistic transaction,” said Jonathan Sadock, managing partner with Paragon Ventures. “It's a nice price and they have been growing this business.”

It's the third buy in home infusion in the past year for BioScrip: In July 2012, it acquired InfuScience for approximately $38.3 million; and in early 2013, it acquired HomeChoice Partners for $70 million.

BioScrip also sold its specialty and mail-order pharmacy divisions to Walgreens for $225 million in May of 2012, narrowing its focus to home infusion even further.

“Their main thing now is to be an infusion player,” said Greg Wappett, senior associate with Provident Healthcare Partners. “Their goal is certainly to spread across the map.”

CarePoint, which came onto the scene in 2008, has 28 locations in nine states in the East Coast and Gulf Coast regions. The provider, backed by Chicago-based private equity firm Waud Capital Partners, formed with the intent of rolling up smaller mom-and-pop providers and, under the leadership of CEO Dana Soper, it has made more than a dozen acquisitions.

“They have aggregated individual small companies and added additional systems and management to create a cohesive structure,” said Reg Blackburn, managing director of specialty pharmacy and infusion services for The Braff Group. “Dana and her management team are infusion veterans.”

Analysts say BioScrip is likely looking for similar opportunities to expand its geographic footprint.

“They are certainly willing to pay premium dollar to get something that's of size and scale,” said Wappett.