(2018-04-17) Livongos Retrofit Acquisition Adds Personalized Weight Management Diabetes Prevention Business

Livongo's latest acquisition adds personalized weight management, diabetes prevention business. Livongo has acquired Retrofit, a weight and diabetes prevention management company. The deal will give Livongo the ability to provide a wider spectrum of services for employer wellness and health plan members

Mary Pigatti, Retrofit CEO, will join Livongo, along with her 80 staff, and continue to oversee Retrofit. In a phone interview, Pigatti reflected on Retrofit’s beginnings as a direct-to-consumer business that later provided its personalized weight management and later, diabetes prevention tools to employer wellness and health plan customers.

Retrofit has been a legacy portfolio company for Cambia Health Solutions. Through Cambia’s joint venture investment business with Mosaic Health Solutions, Echo Health Ventures manages this and other Cambia legacy portfolio companies. Echo Health Ventures also took part in Livongo’s $105 million Series E funding round as part of a strategic partnership.

The plan is to integrate Retrofit Diabetes Prevention program with Livongo’s product offerings

Livongo’s acquisition of Retrofit follows its purchase of Diabeto last fall.

Among the companies that compete in the diabetes prevention space are Omada Health and to some extent Twine Health, which was acquired by Fitbit earlier this year.

the one that is most similar to the Livongo-Retrofit deal is Fitbit’s acquisition of Twine Health, which provides health coaches for people with chronic conditions.

Livongo Acquisition of Retrofit Bolsters Consolidation Talk in Wellness Industry

Livongo’s focus as a company has been to empower people with chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension to live healthier lives, while Retrofit’s programs address overall health concerns through healthy nutrition, exercise and weight management programs

Although Livongo started out by focusing on diabetes and blood pressure, over time it has changed focus to the whole person and overall health. The Retrofit acquisition can help them address on a broader set of health issues.

The company will also gain Retrofit’s 80 Chicago-based employees, including CEO Mary Pigatti, who will continue to oversee Retrofit when she joins Livongo.

Mary Pigatti: What Livongo’s acquisition of Retrofit means for healthcare. We are coming together to take on the management-by-silos approach of the healthcare industry to more fully address the needs of people at risk for and living with chronic health conditions.

Our customers are saying what they want is a single platform that treats the whole person and all of a person’s conditions.

Obese employees are estimated to cost employers a minimum additional $1.4 – 6.7K per year. For every employee they help shift out of the morbidly obese category, we estimate they save the employer approximately $3.7K per year.

Chronic conditions account for the largest and fastest growing part of U.S. health care costs and are responsible for 7 of 10 health related deaths each year.[1] Diabetes and hypertension are among the most prevalent of these conditions

So why not have one cohesive approach to manage these issues?

someone with multiple chronic conditions

Together, using human connection in the form of expert coaches and community, data insights and technology.