News

Datavant Signs Agreement To Acquire DigitalOwl, a Pioneer in AI-Driven Medical Data Analysis

Ardan and New Mountain Capital portfolio company Datavant has announced the acquisition of DigitalOwl, an AI-driven platform specializing in medical record summarization.

This strategic acquisition enhances Datavant’s ability to deliver a fully integrated, end-to-end solution for medical data access and analysis—particularly within insurance and legal markets. By combining DigitalOwl’s advanced AI capabilities with Ontellus’ retrieval infrastructure, Datavant is positioned to drive greater efficiency, accuracy, and speed in medical data workflows.

This milestone reflects Datavant’s continued leadership in building the infrastructure for secure, compliant, and intelligent health data exchange. Congrats to CEO Kyle Armbrester, the Datavant team and our good friend and partner at NMC Matt Holt on yet another strategic capability addition.

HealthEdge and UST HealthProof Merge, Creating Disruptive AI-Powered Healthcare Payer Software and Services Platform

Powerful combination of HealthEdge and UST HealthProof with the announced close of their merger. Ardan Equity is delighted to partner with Bain Capital in the recapitalization of HealthEdge, from Blackstone, and the acquisition of UST HealthProof from UST. The transaction builds among the largest private health plan solutions platforms and reinforces Ardan’s commitment to advancing operational, clinical and financial performance of health insurers. The platform will operate as HealthEdge and be led by Kevin Adams as CEO, with Stephen Krupa actively involved in the board of directors.

The combination supports end-to-end software and AI capabilities for the continued growth of mission-critical platforms that streamline claims operation systems for payers, care and utilization management, and member engagement for over 115 health plans and 110 million member lives across the U.S. Ardan Equity is excited to help accelerate innovation at scale, commercial go-to-market and operational excellence in the payer tech space alongside Bain Capital.

Performant Healthcare, Inc. (Nasdaq: PHLT) acquired by Machinify

Transformational acquisition of Performant Healthcare, Inc. (Nasdaq: PHLT) by Ardan and New Mountain Capital portfolio company Machinify. 

“By combining Machinify's powerful Payer Operating System with Performant’s trusted domain expertise and differentiated data assets, Machinify will support a broader range of clients, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, and state and local governments. The combined company will deliver quality, timely payments at dramatically reduced administrative costs," said David Pierre CEO of Machinify.

Norstella Appoints Kris Joshi as CEO

Norstella, a prominent global provider of pharmaceutical intelligence solutions, has named Kris Joshi, a seasoned health-tech executive, as its new Chief Executive Officer. Former CEO Mike Gallup will assume the position of Executive Chairman.

Joshi brings a strong academic background with a Ph.D. in Physics from MIT and a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Caltech. His diverse career includes roles in consulting, product management, business development, and general management. Most recently, he led Optum’s $3 billion Software, Network, and Data division, serving clients across the payer, provider, and life sciences sectors. Prior to that, he was Executive Vice President at Change Healthcare, overseeing a wide range of cloud-based network and software solutions. He has also held senior positions at Oracle, IBM, and McKinsey & Company.

Knowtion Health Earns Top Honors from Black Book for Fifth Consecutive Year, Securing No. 1 Rankings in Clinical Denials, Medical Necessity Appeals, and Optimization Technologies

For the fifth year in a row, Knowtion Health, a top healthcare revenue cycle company known for delivering smarter, more comprehensive revenue recovery solutions, has earned the No. 1 national ranking from Black Book Research in two key categories: Clinical Denials and Medical Necessity Appeals, and Optimization Technologies and Engagement Strategies.

Based on Black Book Research’s 2025 survey of 902 U.S. provider revenue cycle executives, the findings highlight that over 42% of aging accounts receivable (A/R) now involve complex claims—requiring advanced capabilities that go well beyond traditional billing office functions.

Knowtion Health Acquires Switch RCM

Exciting acquisition for Ardan and Arsenal Capital Partners portfolio company Knowtion Health acquiring Switch RCM. A key expansion in turbo charging our AI and digital revenue cycle management thesis.

Switch RCM is a proven innovator in revenue recovery and solves key customer challenges around tough-to-collect claims through smart automation and progressive analytics. Knowtion's acquisition of Switch RCM enhances Knowtion's already differentiated model with additional data intelligence, digitization, and engineering expertise—all designed to deliver more insights, more recoveries, and more revenue to healthcare organizations.

Knowtion serves more than 550 hospitals nationwide and manages over $4.5 billion annually in outstanding balance accounts for clients. Recognized as an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing company, Knowtion Health is a multi-year recipient of the Black Book award. 

Datavant Acquires Ontellus

Outstanding momentum for Ardan and New Mountain Capital portfolio company Datavant with the latest announced acquisition of Ontellus.

Digitizing manual processes across 1,000's of customers will create measurable value and improved quality for the industry at large. Well done Kyle Armbrester and team!

Intelerad Streamlines AI Reporting with RADPAIR Partnership

Intelerad has entered into a new partnership with RADPAIR to enhance its workflow platform by integrating generative and agentic AI technologies. This collaboration aims to streamline the radiology reporting process by automating key components.

The imaging software company, based in Palo Alto, California, stated that the integration will enable automated report generation by leveraging voice input and study metadata. Radiologists will be able to use natural speech to produce structured reports, which will be automatically populated and ready for final review and approval.

Datavant Acquires Aetion

The expert team at Ardan and partner New Mountain Capital portfolio company Datavant has announced the pending acquisition of Aetion, a Datavant Company in an exciting expansion of their real world evidence (RWE) capabilities.

The companies will focus on leveraging their complementary capabilities to create an end-to-end offering on data discovery, linkage, privacy, curation and advanced analysis to enable their ecosystem and life sciences partners to create analytics-ready insights.

“As Datavant has grown and scaled, our life sciences and ecosystem partners have been asking us for a deeper capability set to bring together disparate data sources so they can tap into a more comprehensive and longitudinal view of patient health across the product lifecycle," said Kyle Armbrester, Chief Executive Officer, Datavant. Congrats to Kyle, Matt Holt, Arnaub Chatterjee and teams!

Upon closing, Datavant and Aetion will have a combined ecosystem of over 300 data partners. Datavant’s RWD partners comprise datasets across electronic health records, claims, specialty pharmacy, registries, imaging, lab, social determinants of health, and more.

WellSky® Launches Resource Management Solution

WellSky, a leading provider of technology and services for global health and community care, has unveiled WellSky Resource Manager, an advanced new platform aimed at revolutionizing how organizations handle patient scheduling and workforce coordination.

Datavant Acquires Machinify

Powerful acquisition of Machinify, a leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered software transforming healthcare payments, by our payment integrity platform, with great partner Matt Holt and New Mountain Capital. The combined entity, with revenue of more than $500 million, will be named Machinify.

As CEO David Pierre said, "the planned combination with Machinify reflects our strategy of utilizing data and AI, coupled with deep domain expertise, to simplify and reduce costs across the healthcare payment process". Machinify will become a core part of the company recently formed through the merger of The Rawlings Group, Apixio’s Payment Integrity business, and VARIS LLC. The combined organization will bring together revolutionary technology, clinical expertise, and a wealth of data to transform healthcare payments and build a frictionless foundation for healthcare administration for all stakeholders.

Founded in 2016, Machinify developed an innovative cloud-based data intelligence platform that enables the secure, safe, and transparent deployment of purpose-built AI-powered applications to optimize the healthcare claims lifecycle. Machinify’s foundational operating system, which powers the company’s Audit and Pay workflows, has advanced the level of automation, efficiency, and accuracy within healthcare payments infrastructure.

Kyle Ambrester Sits Down with Business Insider

Ardan's sector specialization in healthcare and life sciences software & data companies led by exceptional CEO's is exemplified by Datavant, led by powerhouse CEO Kyle Armbrester, who recently sat down with Business Insider to share thoughts on 2025 and beyond.

Datavant, which manages patient data exchanges between providers, payers, and life sciences organizations, has made 11 acquisitions since 2017. The company kicked off a fresh M&A rush in the fall, picking up data privacy organization Trace Data and two data analytics products from healthcare AI platform Apixio in September.

Ardan Senior Advisor Ernie Ludy Publishes Paper on Business Model Innovation in US Healthcare in HMPI

Thought provoking piece from our Ardan Equity Senior Advisor Ernie Ludy, "Insured But Not Protected: Business Model Innovation and Stabilizing Healthcare Premium Inflation for All Americans."

WellSky® Acquires Bonafide Health

WellSky's acquisition of Bonafide Health leads its expansion into the home & durable medical equipment (HME/DME) software market segments and creates yet another exciting growth trajectory for this Ardan Equity, TPG and Leonard Green & Partners (LGP) software platform, propelling it towards CEO Bill Miller's goal of $1 billion in revenue.

Edifecs and HealthEdge Announce Strategic Partnership

Big industry news in the partnership announced between Ardan Equity and Blackstone portfolio company HealthEdge and Francisco Partners & TA Associates platform Edifecs. The partnership will natively integrate Edifecs’ EDI Gateway offerings and HealthEdge’s HealthRules Payer claims adjudication system. This solution will make it easier for payers to exchange and connect healthcare data – reducing friction, strengthening business agility, and enhancing operational efficiency.

Congrats to our valued partners CEO Stephen Krupa, his team Alexander Saltzman, Matt McLaughlin, Philip Anzalone, Craig Wilson, Chris Conte and the Blackstone team Ram Jagannath, Anushka Sunder and Dan Rozenfeld.

Citeline (A Norstella Company) to Partner with Greenphire

Exciting partnership between Ardan, Warburg Pincus LLC, Hg, Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe portfolio company Norstella's division Pharma Ignite and Greenphire (Thoma Bravo). In the partnership, Citeline, a leader in intelligence solutions for the life sciences industry, and financial management software company Greenphire will power solutions enabling clinical research sponsors and CROs to plan cost-effective trials that recruit patients faster and launch more efficiently.

Mike Gallup, CEO of Norstella says it best: "This partnership presents a unique opportunity to solve the unmet needs of trial sponsors and all stakeholders involved in bringing treatments to patients in need. The additional metrics created by this collaboration will underpin intuitive solutions that allow the industry at large to optimize trials from planning to execution."

Datavant Acquires Apixio's AI-Powered Connected Care Platform and Value-Based Solutions

Thrilling acquisition of Ardan Equity and New Mountain Capital portfolio company Apixio's AI-powered Connected Care and value-based care division by ubiquitous data platform Datavant - completing part II of a complex transaction. Congrats to CEO Sachin Patel, the Apixio team and our trusted partners Matt Holt, Brian Murphy and CEO Kyle Armbrester on this bold play to revolutionize the healthcare data market.

Ardan is excited to partner with the Datavant team led by Kyle, including life sciences president Arnaub Chatterjee, to continue accelerating growth in healthcare and life sciences data logistics and making the world’s health data secure, accessible and usable.

The Rawlings Group, Apixio Payment Integrity, and VARIS Merge to Form Next-Generation Payment Accuracy and Integrity Platform

Congratulations to Ardan and New Mountain Capital portfolio company Apixio's payment integrity division, including recently acquired VARIS LLC, and the team led by CEO Sachin Patel and president Tom Magnotta. The acquisition by The Rawlings Group will harness the power of Apixio's artificial intelligence and analytics capabilities at scale.

Under the leadership of David Pierre, the $3 billion platform will offer an expansive set of capabilities, including subrogation, coordination of benefits, pharmacy payment integrity, and complex claim solutions, to ensure payment integrity and will serve many of the largest health plans in the United States.

WellSky Acquires Corridor, Powered by WellSky

Exciting news at WellSky with its acquisition of Corridor, Powered by WellSky, fresh on the heels of its acquisition of Experience Care, to strengthen its position in home health, coding and RCM and move into the skilled clinicians.

Corridor’s deep industry expertise in billing and financials, workforce issues, and medical coding complements WellSky’s aim to deliver innovative solutions that power providers’ success. Corridor clients will soon be able to leverage WellSky’s robust analytics, care coordination, patient engagement, interoperability, and EHR solutions to enhance care quality and better position clients for success with value based care models.

WellSky Acquires Experience Care

Powerful acquisition of Experience Care by WellSky to expand our footprint in the long term care software market. Experience Care has a proven track record with its leading electronic health record (EHR) platform NetSolutions, serving 150 long-term care clients with 850 facilities. The combination of the two firms will enable more providers to increase operational efficiencies, improve financial performance, and turn data into meaningful information that advances resident care—further establishing WellSky as a top software partner for post-acute and long-term care providers.

As WellSky CEO Bill Miller said, "With the addition of Experience Care, WellSky becomes a well-resourced and scalable intelligent care management partner for long-term care providers.”

Thermo Fisher Scientific Acquires CorEvitas

Congratulations to our portfolio company PPD Real-World Evidence Solutions, alongside partner Audax Private Equity, and Thermo Fisher Scientific for the announced acquisition. Since our investment CorEvitas has grown to be among the largest platforms providing regulatory-grade, real world evidence solutions to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with objective data and clinical insights to improve patient care and clinical outcomes.

Hats off to the brilliant CorEvitas team led by Raymond (Ray) H Hill and including Kartik DB, Jeffrey Greenberg, Ken Lambe, John Puopolo, Abbe Steel, MSc, Jennifer Kelly, Jessica Eisenhaure, Leslie Harrold, Delfi Nieto and Diego Wyszynski, MD, MHS, PhD. Thermo CEO Marc Casper said it well, “There is strong market demand for real-world evidence which improves decision making and reduces the time and cost associated with drug development.”

A special mention and thanks to our Executive Partner Stan Norton, who we lost in 2022, for his value creation contributions as a longtime software and data architecture advisor within the company.

CorEvitas LLC Acquires Pregistry, LLC

PPD Real-World Evidence Solutions acquires Pregistry, a CorEvitas Company. The acquisition represents CorEvitas' fifth acquisition and expands its real-world evidence footprint to include syndicated pregnancy observational data and retrospective claims studies. This investment accelerates CorEvitas' continued expansion of syndicated registries, complementing its already deep base of expertise in realworld evidence for autoimmune and inflammatory-mediated diseases.

Congrats to Raymond (Ray) H Hill, team and partner Audax Private Equity on another value creating addition to the platform.

Citeline and Norstella Complete Merger

Bravo Mike Gallup, Jay Nadler and team! Norstella & Citeline have completed their merger. At deal close, the $5 billion global company is now one of the world’s largest pharma intelligence solutions providers on the market. This merger will allow Norstella to prioritize rapid innovation to help guide life sciences companies through the entire drug development process so patients can get access to therapies quicker.