Credit Suisse https://www.credit-suisse.com recently hosted Chris Michalak, CEO of Virgin Pulse for a virtual meeting with a small group of investors.
By way of background, Virgin Pulse https://www.virginpulse.com is a leading provider of digital and wellbeing SaaS solutions and services focused on driving health outcomes and reducing healthcare costs.
Virgin Pulse is a digital wellbeing platform focused on effectively helping individual members better manage their health by using a combination of wellbeing, navigation, and live services capabilities.
Virgin Pulse’s Homebase for Health sits at the center of delivering the company’s core capabilities, where the solution essentially acts as a digital front door for employers to help their members navigate the array of benefits the company offers.
Homebase for Health is empowered by several tech and human touch components, including Virgin Pulse’s 1) robust vendor partner ecosystem, 2) rich healthcare consumerism dataset, and 3) live services (~200 certified coaches).
The most popular offering, Virgin Pulse’s wellbeing rewards program, uses a combination of intrinsic (e.g., competition) and extrinsic rewards (e.g. premium discounts) to drive engagement and daily habits. Importantly, Virgin Pulse does not provide clinical care itself, but leverages their vendor partners to deliver such capabilities to members.
Virgin Pulse has two sets of channel partners. In the VP+ Partner Bundle, Virgin Pulse has a narrow network of 7 providers with a preferred partner status, where Virgin Pulse has pre-negotiated a very good rate to deliver that set of services to clients. By enabling distribution through Virgin Pulse’s sales forces, Virgin Pulse can pass on that cost savings to clients, while receiving economic incentives for driving volume into those providers.
For members who require deeper solutions, Virgin Pulse has a broader ecosystem of partnerships with over 75 other digital therapeutics companies that can connect directly to members.
Importantly, Virgin Pulse has not seen any potential partners refusing to sign on with the company, nor did they see a lot of vendor switching behavior from employers. Instead, Virgin Pulse is encouraged to see employers receptive to adding more available capabilities to staff, typically starting with diabetes before adding MSK and mental health capabilities.
Unlike traditional navigation companies (e.g., Accolade, Quantum Health, and Grand Rounds), Virgin Pulse believes they are relatively unique given their core focus on wellbeing, which enables then to establish broader relationships with members early on before chronic/acute issues arise.
However, Virgin Pulse does view Sharecare as a formidable competitor, where the two companies compete in the care wellbeing space. Separately. Virgin Pulse is seeing few larger health plans competitors making investments in digital capability sets.
While industry consolidation does appear to be on the rise, Virgin Pulse believes these consolidations are necessary to bring organization, ease of use, better access, and navigation of these solutions to clients. In fact, Virgin Pulse is evaluating all types of opportunities (e.g., partnerships, M&A. organic growth) to drive their leading position in the marketplace.
To ask questions, provide feedback, or provide news, email Jailendra Singh at jailendra.singh@credit-suisse.com or call 212-325-8121.