Chronic care management platform Thirty Madison has acquired the assets of online birth control pharmacy The Pill Club following the company’s bankruptcy in April.
New York-based Thirty Madison purchased over 100,000 patient files from the bankrupt company for $32.3 million, according to Axios.
Thirty Madison said that thanks to its strategic asset purchase, the company will ensure continuity of care for over 100,000 patients through its Nurx brand, a direct-to-consumer women’s health company best known for its online birth control prescriptions.
“We are excited to continue our ongoing commitment to building a leading women’s health offering through Nurx, our women’s healthcare brand. We are thrilled to welcome this new cohort of patients and provide them with high-quality care that will not only address their reproductive health needs, but also broaden their options to mental health, skincare, and more to achieve optimal health,” Thirty Madison said in a post on LinkedIn.
THE LARGER TREND
The Pill Club launched in 2016 and raised $51 million in Series B funding three years later and another $41.9 million in 2021.
The women’s health company came under fire in February when the California Department of Justice accused it of billing Medi-Cal for services it had not provided, allegedly submitting claims for 30-minute face-to-face counseling sessions when its nurse practitioners didn’t have direct or real-time contact with patients.
The California Department of Insurance said the birth control provider would bill for in-person visits when nurses only reviewed patient questionnaires. It also alleged the company dispensed female condoms to beneficiaries who did not want or ask for the contraceptives while billing Medi-Cal significantly above the retail price.
The Pill Club reached an $18.3 million settlement with California authorities for allegedly defrauding the state’s Medicaid program, with $15 million to be paid to the DOJ and $3.3 million to the CDI.
The settlement came just days after a state court unsealed a whistleblower complaint against the company in which former nurse practitioners alleged it had defrauded private insurers in at least 38 states.
According to a statement from their attorneys regarding the settlement, the whistleblowers would receive approximately $5 million.
The Pill Club subsequently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April.
Meanwhile, Thirty Madison has garnered substantial investment through the years, closing a $47 million funding round in 2020 and scoring $140 million in Series C funding in 2021, pushing the company into unicorn status with a valuation of over $2 billion and a total raise of over $210 million.
The specialty healthcare company purchased the female-focused digital healthcare platform Nurx in 2022.
