It was a ResMed kind of year
By Liz Beaulieu, Editor
Updated Tue January 3, 2017
In our HME Newswire on Monday, we featured a story on the top 10 most viewed stories on www.hmenews.com for all of 2016.
Because our vendors section is my main “beat,” I also wanted to take a look at the most viewed vendors stories for the year. Naturally, since “ResMed gets one-two punch with Brightree” was an overall most read story it crosses over to this list, too, but the rest of the top five looks like so:
Invacare readies to submit final report to FDA
ResMed makes play for oxygen market
So three of the five most viewed vendors stories in 2016 had to do with ResMed, two of them having to do with major acquisitions made by the company—the aforementioned Brightree and Inova Labs.
Both of these M&A-related stories had legs, spawning a number of follow-up stories, like “Many questions in wake of ResMed-Brightree deal” and “ResMed to bring tech to bear on POC market.”
The third of the ResMed stories to make the most viewed list was about ResMed disclosing in a 10-K filed with the Security and Exchange Commission that it received a federal administrative subpoena from the Office of Inspector General requesting documents and other information related to its patient resupply software. We also wrote about Philips Respironics being in a similar pickle in 2016—“Pricing structure costs Respironics $34.8M”—but that story didn't make the most viewed list, or so Google Analytics tells me.
Will we find out more about the fate of the ResMed investigation in 2016? I'll be regularly checking in on the company's SEC filings to find out.
Speaking of M&A, another vendor that was on fire in 2016 was Drive Medical. Making the most viewed list was a story about Drive Medical being bought by private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. The company already had PE involvement from Ferrer, Freeman & Co., but that firm was a minority stockholder. CDR will have more control.
Rounding out the list was Invacare and its years-long battle to lift a consent decree with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It looked like Invacare was turning the corner, with one final report to submit to the FDA, but it suffered a setback soon after when the agency told the company it still had work to do. And there we have remained.
Will these same companies dominate the headlines in 2017? I bet they will, but it's one of my work-related resolutions to write more about the many, many other vendors in the HME industry, from big to small.
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