A plan that would have merged Cone Health with a Virginia-based health care provider is off. Officials with Cone and Sentara Healthcare announced a deal back in August that would have combined the two nonprofit providers into one organization with an annual revenue of more than $11 billion. Now Cone Health says the two sides have mutually decided not to go forward with the merger. Last week, the board of directors of both organizations agreed to end the affiliation plans.
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Sentara Healthcare and Cone Health represent the latest in a series of scuttled merger proposals, but it isn t expected to slow M&A activity, industry observers said.
Sentara and Cone abandoned their plans Wednesday to build a more than $11 billion system spanning North Carolina to Virginia amidst internal opposition as well as criticism from community members and state regulators. Around a dozen proposed mergers between relatively healthy not-for-profit systems haven t closed over the past three years as doctors have protested and regulators have become increasingly wary of consolidation. I do think it s reflective of this new attitude toward consolidation in healthcare where more than ever, enforcers are suspicious of systems that are growing and skeptical of the benefits they claim they ll bring, said Ken Field, an attorney with Jones Day who works on healthcare antitrust and competition issues. It s almost as if we re starting from a position of disapproval as
(Lia Shaked)
Welcome to this week s Chutes & Ladders, our roundup of hirings, firings and retirings throughout the industry. Please submit the good news or the bad from your shop, and we will feature it here at the end of each week.
Verily
(FDA)
Amy Abernethy, M.D., is the latest former government official to join Verily, the Alphabet subsidiary announced Thursday.
It was only a few months ago that she departed from her role as principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). She also served as the agency’s acting chief information officer.
Dive Brief:
>Sentara Healthcare and Cone Health are scrapping plans to merge after signing a letter of intent in August 2020. The deal was expected to close in the middle of this year pending regulatory approval, and would have created a 17-hospital, $11.5 billion system.
Norfolk, Virginia-based Sentara is a nonprofit system with 12 hospitals in Virginia and North Carolina and its health plans serve over 800,000 members in Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio. Greensboro, North Carolina-based Cone Health is also a nonprofit with five hospitals in the state, and its two health plans serve 15,000 members.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein held a comment period in late April to gauge feedback on the merger, and received more than 40 responses, many touching on potential reduced competition in the market.
Updated: 2:31 PM EDT June 2, 2021
NORFOLK, Va. After almost a year of planning to merge, Sentara Healthcare and Cone Health announced Wednesday that the healthcare companies had decided not to combine.
The Virginia-based Sentara, and North Carolina-based Cone, initially made their announcement in August of 2020. At that time, the not-for-profit companies thought merging their teams might take two years.
A Wednesday release said leadership from the two companies had been honing in on the merge with dedication starting in early 2021, when they mutually came to the decision to cancel. Since announcing our intent to affiliate, both Sentara Healthcare and Cone Health have remained committed to doing what is in the best interests of all those we have the privilege to serve, a spokesperson wrote. As this work progressed, we realized that each of our communities and key stakeholders require support and commitments from our respective organizations that are better se