Saint John-based Elandas, which sells software that allows doctors to easily check whether a drug is covered by their patient’s insurance, has bought Pennsylvania’s AccessSync.
Elandas CEO Ryan Roberts said in an interview that his company will also adopt the AccessSync name because it better evokes the business’s value proposition.
His company’s suite of SaaS software for the United States healthcare market — the largest in the world — offers doctors information about which health insurance companies cover which drugs and under what circumstances, as well as any limitations of the coverage. Pharmaceutical companies buy subscriptions for doctors to use.
“Most of our clients are data rich,” said Roberts. “They have a lot of data to use to make decisions. The problem is, data often ends up very siloed.
“So you have third party datasets, you have human intelligence, you have sales results … We take these silos and try to break them down.”
Last year, Elandas roughly doubled its revenue, and Roberts said growth looks similarly strong this year.
AccessSync, meanwhile, sells a range of “market access” software and is headquartered in Newtown, about 45 minutes outside Philadelphia, in what Managing Director Tate Rarick described as “the heart of pharma country.”
Market access describes the processes by which pharmaceutical companies help doctors secure funding from insurance companies for patients’ medication. In the U.S. market, one of the most byzantine in the developed world, market access can be foundational to the viability of new products.
“If a prescriber identifies an appropriate patient, then they need the information required to make sure that prescription is covered,” said Roberts. “Once they make a clinical decision to prescribe for appropriate patients, they need to figure out ‘Well, how do I actually make sure the patient gets this product?’”
Elandas was originally founded more than a decade ago by Roberts and COO Aaron van Vulpen, but pivoted to a SaaS model about three and a half years ago. The change in strategy also marked the beginning of a recurring series of collaborations with AccessSync, including Rarick serving on Elandas’s advisory board.
Rarick said the two businesses have learned by working together frequently on client deals that their product offerings complement each other well. AccessSync’s location in a pharmaceutical industry hotspot also offers Elandas better access to its target market. Some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, including GlaxoSmithKline and Merck & Co. have sizeable offices in Pennsylvania.
And unlike many mergers, Roberts and Rarick said neither employees at AccessSync, nor at Elandas will face layoffs. In fact, in the months leading up to the merger, AccessSync began staffing up in anticipation of a coming expansion push. The newly amalgamated company now has just under 30 employees and a handful of job openings.
Neither company’s website or LinkedIn page lists job openings, but Roberts said Elandas has identified a novel pipeline for junior talent. He declined to share details out of concerns about market competitiveness.
Elandas also did not raise capital to fund the AccessSync deal, Roberts said. The company’s most recent raise was before the pandemic, and he does not expect to raise again until after the dust from the merger has settled.
“We just want to get this merger behind us and get the teams fully integrated, and then we’ll see where we’re at,” he said. “But if revenues keep growing at the rate they have been … that might speed up the timetable on (raising) a bit.”
