Main, New Mountain, Marlin Equity target patient engagement tech; Specialty pharmacy, mental health needs drive Flexpoint’s sale of ArtesRx
Morning Hubsters,
Happy Fri-yay! This is John R Fischer in the New York newsroom with the US Wire.
New software, including agentic AI applications, are fueling provider adoption of patient engagement technology. PE dealmakers like Main Capital, New Mountain Capital and Marlin Equity Partners see opportunities to scale these capabilities further via M&A and organically. We’ll discuss these trends below in my five-deal listicle.
For Friday Focus, we’ll dive into specialty pharmacy. This week, Flexpoint Ford closed the sale of ArtesRx, a behavioral health pharmacy, to Linden Capital Partners.
Patient interactions
As labor shortages strain healthcare providers, many are looking to reduce their workloads by managing time-consuming tasks – such as patient engagement – with the help of software or agentic AI applications. These can assist with multi-step workflows, such as scheduling, prescription management, appointment reminders and electronic medical record (EMR) assessments.
This growth has caught private equity’s attention, with dealmakers seeing agentic AI as an “inflection point” for patient engagement software, according to Chris Dorn, managing director, investment banking, at Fifth Third Securities, a subsidiary of Fifth Third Bank.
“Agentic AI has given rise to several companies automating phone outreach for scheduling, fielding patient questions and integrating responses into the EMR,” Dorn told PE Hub. “As a result, many PE investment committees see this subsector as the highest hurdle for making an investment. If the first question is ‘Can AI do what this company does?’, a patient engagement software needs significant ROI and long-term contracts to gather interest.”
I rounded up five deals in patient engagement software dating back to the beginning of 2026. Here’s an excerpt from the story:
Radar Healthcare, a portfolio company of Marlin Equity Partners, announced in August the acquisition of Cemplicity, a patient experience and patient-reported outcomes platform.
Cemplicity’s primary locations are in London and Auckland, New Zealand. The company develops SaaS, cloud-based software that collects real-time input from patients at each care stage to help providers improve care experiences and spot issues early.
With Cemplicity, Radar Healthcare will gain capabilities in patient-reported experience measures, patient-reported outcome measures, real-time patient feedback, shared decision-making insights, surgical site infection surveillance, service recovery feedback and post-care outcomes.
It also expands Radar Healthcare’s international footprint through Cemplicity’s operations in Australia and New Zealand, alongside a presence in the Middle East and the UK.
Based in Leeds in the UK, Radar Healthcare develops software for monitoring risk, quality and compliance in healthcare and social care settings. Marlin acquired the company in 2024.
Swoop, a healthcare engagement company backed by New Mountain Capital, announced in May the acquisition of Nimble.
Nimble is a prescription management platform operating out of Redwood City, California. It helps modernize operations for local and regional pharmacies and uses mobile apps and online portals to connect patients to pharmacies for refills, notifications and payments. It also uses this data to help pharmacy and manufacturers improve adherence and outreach initiatives for connecting with patients.
Swoop is headquartered in New York and uses de-identified, real-world health data to connect patients with providers, while protecting their privacy. It works with top pharmaceutical manufacturers and brands to facilitate these connections as well as predict non-adherence and deliver co-ordinated messaging to patients.
New Mountain acquired Swoop in 2021 through its portfolio company W2O. It spun the company off as an independent business in 2024.
Beyond the completed deals in our listicle, more are coming. Earlier in August, Francisco Partners agreed to take Weave, an AI-powered patient engagement and payments platform for healthcare practices, private for $650 million. Also in August, Rockbridge Growth Equity agreed to sell CheckedUp, a specialty point-of-care education and engagement platform, to Providence Equity Partners. As part of the transaction, Varsity Healthcare Partners will also make a minority investment in CheckedUp.
Friday Focus
Specialty pharmacies enjoy resilient revenue streams due to recurring prescription refills for patients with complex needs and strong payer relationships. Growing demand for mental health treatments, substance use disorders and disabilities, combined with fragmented local and regional specialty pharmacies, also attract PE dealmakers to the segment.
Earlier this week, Flexpoint Ford closed the sale of ArtesRx, a behavioral healthcare pharmacy, to Linden Capital Partners.
ArtesRx is a network of pharmacies that provide medications to patients with serious mental illness, substance use disorders and intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Under Flexpoint, which backed the company in 2023, ArtesRx pursued organic and acquisitive growth that took it from three pharmacies in one state to 16 across 14 states and Washington, D.C. One acquisition was of Parkview Health Services in 2023.
ArtesRx also built out its executive leadership team, strengthened its sales infrastructure and established an in-house M&A engine to pursue add-on acquisitions.
Michael Fazekas, managing director at Flexpoint, said the vision for “building a new type of pharmacy platform” and a care model prioritizing complex patients had been “key drivers of the company’s success.”
Well, that’s it for me. As always, if you have any questions, comments or want to chat, drop me an email at john.fischer@pei.group.
Before I sign off, a scheduling note: There will be no Europe Wire on Monday due to a UK bank holiday. The next one will hit your inboxes on Tuesday. Rafael Canton, who is filling in for MK Flynn, will bring you the US Wire on Monday.
Cheers,
John
