Risant Health completes acquisition of Geisinger
May 2024—Risant Health has completed its acquisition of Geisinger as its first health system dedicated to increasing access to value-based care and coverage. Risant says the organizations together will create a new value-based care platform that includes best practices, tools, technology, and services to support community-based health systems.
Risant Health’s goal is to accelerate the adoption of value-based care in diverse, multipayer, multiprovider, community-based health system environments and improve the health of people in communities nationwide. Through this first acquisition, Risant Health brings together Kaiser Permanente’s integrated care and coverage expertise and Geisinger’s experience in advancing value-based care in a model that includes various payers and a broad network of providers, while serving marginalized communities.
Jaewon Ryu, MD, JD, Geisinger’s president and CEO since 2019, will become the first CEO of Risant Health.
As Risant’s inaugural health system, Geisinger will play a part in shaping Risant’s strategy, platform, and operational model. Geisinger will maintain its name and mission and continue to accept patients covered by other health plans and to offer its members a broad network of providers in addition to Geisinger.
As a part of Risant, Geisinger will build on its mission to care for rural and urban communities across Pennsylvania. It will have access to capital, technology, and other resources to fuel improvements in facilities, drive innovation and investment in patient care, and continue the expansion of Geisinger Health Plan.
Risant Health expects to acquire four or five additional community-based health systems over the next four to five years.
Headquartered in Washington, DC, Risant is a nonprofit, charitable organization created by Kaiser Foundation Hospitals in 2023. The transaction to acquire Geisinger closed March 31.
Breakthrough designation for pTau217 blood test
Roche’s Elecsys pTau217 assay received breakthrough device designation from the Food and Drug Administration. The blood test, which is being developed in collaboration with Eli Lilly, will be used to help identify the presence or absence of amyloid pathology.
Elecsys Phospho-Tau (217P) is intended to be an in vitro diagnostic immunoassay for the quantitative determination of the protein phospho-tau (217P) in human plasma from individuals age 60 and older. A positive result indicates a high likelihood of having a positive amyloid PET/cerebrospinal fluid result and a negative result indicates a high likelihood of having a negative amyloid PET/CSF result.
CE mark for HER2-low CDx
Roche received the CE mark for its Ventana HER2 (4B5) Rabbit Monoclonal Primary Antibody RxDx to identify metastatic breast cancer patients with low HER2 expression for whom Enhertu (trastuzumab deruxtecan) may be considered as a targeted treatment. The test, branded Pathway in the United States, received FDA approval in 2022.