The Weekly Checkup: Week of August 24-28, 2026

Week of August 24-28, 2026

I tracked 43 announced transactions this week, with 24 services and 19 technology, and platform creation snapped back: 5 platform deals against 38 add-ons. Two deals came with immediate financial detail. Radiology Partners is buying Everlight Radiology for a reported $715 million, which prices what is (basically) a physician services business at nearly 5x revenue, and McKesson is paying $2.25 billion for Precision Medicine Group's CRO and commercialization units. The most interesting deal of the week was unannounced: Sword Health's acquisition of Headspace surfaced through a Massachusetts state filing, at a price reportedly a tenth of Headspace's 2021 valuation. A state health panel advanced the $2.2 billion plan to fold Maimonides into New York City's public hospital system over sustained community opposition. And Teva showed up as the stalking horse in BioXcel's Chapter 11 (similar to the recent Sangamo situation).

Listings range from a retiring cardiologist's EECP therapy center in Orange County to a single-market urology group asking platform pricing.

Deal value: $715 million (reported) | EV / Revenue: 4.93x | EV / EBITDA: 15.38x

Radiology Partners, the largest radiology practice in the U.S., agreed to acquire Everlight Radiology from UK private equity firm Livingbridge. Everlight operates a follow-the-sun teleradiology model with more than 800 radiologists reading for hospitals and imaging centers across the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The press release didn't disclose terms; however, the Australian Financial Review put the price at roughly $715 million. Against approximately $145 million of revenue and $46.5 million of EBITDA (a 32% margin), that's 4.93x revenue and 15.4x EBITDA. Everlight will combine with vRad, RP's teleradiology unit and the largest in the U.S.

My take: Almost 5x revenue for a physician services business is unusual, of course. Physician groups usually trade on EBITDA because the revenue line is just labor passing through; a revenue multiple this high means the buyer thinks the scarce asset is the labor itself. There aren't enough radiologists anywhere in the English-speaking world, imaging volumes keep growing, and a credentialed network that can read a UK scan overnight from Sydney is a capacity bottleneck. Livingbridge paid about $344 million for its majority stake in 2021 and is exiting at $715 million five years later.

Radiology Partners restructured its debt in early 2024 after years of questions about its leverage, and just two years later it's writing a nine-figure check for international expansion. A platform moving from balance sheet repair back to offense suggests its lenders and sponsors see the same scarcity argument. For US radiology group owners, a well-capitalized Radiology Partners hunting for reading capacity, now on multiple continents, is worth factoring into any conversation about your own timeline.

Deal value: $2.25 billion | EV / EBITDA: 13.64x

McKesson signed a definitive agreement to acquire Precision Medicine Group, a clinical research and biopharma commercialization services firm, from Blackstone for approximately $2.25 billion. PMG's services span biomarker intelligence, lab services, CRO capabilities, market access consulting, and commercialization support, with a heavy oncology focus. Press reporting puts EBITDA for the acquired units at roughly $165 million of PMG's approximately $200 million total, implying a multiple of about 13.6x. PMG will become a component of McKesson's Oncology & Multispecialty segment, which grew 33% year over year last quarter.

My take: McKesson already owns US Oncology, one of the largest community oncology networks in the country, plus the data business built on top of it. Adding a CRO and commercialization shop means McKesson can now sell a pharma manufacturer trial execution, evidence generation, market access, and dispensing through its own oncology practices, molecule to market in one vendor. Whether that vertical stack creates conflicts (the same company running your trial and dispensing your competitor's drug) is a question pharma clients will ask, but the strategic logic of owning every tollbooth on the oncology highway is clear enough.

Blackstone is exiting to a strategic after reports it had been testing the buyout market for these units, and that path, sponsor to strategic rather than sponsor to sponsor, keeps showing up in the news. When financial buyers can't clear each other's price expectations, the corporates with segment strategies and cheap balance sheets become the exit.

Neither company has announced anything, but a Notice of Material Change filed with the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission on July 22 shows that Headspace's parent, OrangeDot, has agreed to be acquired by Sword Health in an all-cash merger effective September 14. The filing references HSR submissions from July 9 and a parallel filing with the Oregon Health Authority. Axios subsequently reported a price between $200 million and $300 million. Headspace, which merged with Ginger in 2021 at a combined $3 billion valuation, has raised over $320 million and serves employer and payer clients including Amazon and roughly 45 insurers.

My take: Headspace at $200 to $300 million is roughly a 90% markdown from its 2021 valuation, and this isn't a broken company: it has 45 payer relationships, blue-chip employer clients, and one of the world’s more recognizable consumer health brands. Sword, which has its own IPO ambitions and a behavioral health buildout underway, is buying distribution and a brand for less than Headspace raised. Expect more of these pairings, strong balance sheet buys tired unicorn, as the 2021 vintage keeps coming to market.

A state health panel this week advanced the plan to bring Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn's largest independent health system, into NYC Health + Hospitals through newly created public subsidiaries. The transaction, announced last year with an original April 1 closing target, has been slowed by trustee and community lawsuits and by the state Attorney General's decision to route the nonprofit asset transfer through court review rather than administrative approval. Officials cite access to the higher Medicaid reimbursement rates available to public hospitals, a new Epic system, and state operating and capital support. Opposition remains substantial in the Orthodox Jewish community Maimonides has served for a century, despite commitments to preserve religious and cultural practices for at least 30 years.

My take: Strip away the politics and the economic engine of this deal is reimbursement arbitrage. Maimonides loses money largely because it serves a Medicaid-heavy population at private-hospital rates; the same patients generate materially better reimbursement inside a public system eligible for supplemental payment programs. The $2.2 billion figure is less a purchase price than the projected cost of absorbing, recapitalizing, and re-platforming the system. A nonprofit hospital transfer in New York runs through the Attorney General's charities bureau and, in contested cases, the courts, on top of health department approval. Community standing is not a soft factor here; it has already added months to the timeline and forced a 500-page application into the public record. Distressed safety-net hospitals increasingly have three outcomes: absorption by a larger nonprofit, absorption by government, or closure.

Deal value: $57.5 million upfront, up to $67.5 million contingent

BioXcel Therapeutics filed for Chapter 11 and simultaneously signed an asset sale agreement with Teva covering substantially all of its assets, principally IGALMI, a dexmedetomidine sublingual film approved for acute agitation in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, plus the pending sNDA for at-home use with a November 14 PDUFA date. Teva will serve as stalking horse in a Section 363 auction, paying $57.5 million upfront with up to $67.5 million in contingent payments tied to approval timing and sales milestones.

My take: This is the same movies as the Sangamo auction from two weeks ago with a different cast. Commercial or near-commercial asset, subscale company that couldn't afford its own launch, Chapter 11 filed with a strategic stalking horse already signed, and milestones structured around a regulatory event so the buyer isn't paying for approval risk upfront. The sNDA is the actual asset here: IGALMI's approved label requires administration under healthcare supervision, which confined it to hospitals and kept sales far below what BioXcel needed. At-home approval in November would change the drug's addressable market entirely, and Teva has structured its contingent payments around exactly that event. Astellas's stalking horse bid for Sangamo's Fabry program got run over at four times the upfront; whether IGALMI draws that kind of competition will say something about how many strategics want a neuroscience commercial asset versus a rare disease one.

I tracked 38 additional transactions this week, including Advent International's platform investment in New Zealand Clinical Research, the week's second CRO deal, and BPOC's same-day double of Master Medical Equipment and ReNew Biomedical to form a biomedical equipment services platform. Globus Medical bought Higgs Boson Health, Alliant agreed to acquire benefits platform Nava in one of three benefits-broker deals this week, and Regent Surgical added a cardiac-capable Arizona ASC. Dental produced four deals across four states, Golden State Dermatology entered Colorado weeks after the DermCare-USDP merger thinned the derm buyer pool, and in a small reversal worth savoring, a physician group in Bellingham, Washington agreed to buy a clinic back from Optum.

Five listings this week. The usual exercise applies: figure out what each earnings line is measuring before arguing about the multiple, and in one case below, figure out what the business even is, because the broker's headline won't tell you.

Location: Orange County, CA | Asking Price: $4.6M | Revenue: $2.9M | Cash Flow: $1.2M | CF Margin: 40% | Price / Revenue: 1.6x | Price / Cash Flow: 3.9x

The broker's headline says "Amazing Family Medical Practice," but the listing itself describes a 30-plus-year cardiovascular and internal medicine practice built around an Enhanced External Counterpulsation therapy center that occupies roughly half of a 15,000 square foot facility, described as one of the most comprehensive outpatient EECP operations on the West Coast, with research activity attached. Three-year average revenue is about $3.0 million with average EBITDA of $1.3 million (43.5%). The practice runs with 21 employees averaging more than ten years of tenure. The founding interventional cardiologist, in practice over four decades, is retiring, owns the building, and is open to selling the real estate and staying on through a transition.

My take: First, the mislabeled headline matters, because "family medical practice" and "cardiology practice anchored by an EECP center" are very different assets with very different buyers, and anyone screening listings by category would miss this. What's actually for sale is a niche cardiac therapy operation. EECP is a Medicare-covered, noninvasive treatment for refractory angina delivered in long session courses, which creates recurring, protocol-driven visit volume, and a 43.5% margin reflects that clinic-style economics rather than typical internal medicine. The diligence follows directly: split revenue between EECP, diagnostics, and office visits, confirm the Medicare dependence and the documentation supporting medical necessity, since coverage for EECP is indication-specific and audit-sensitive, and understand how much referral flow is personal to a physician who has been the face of the practice for 40 years. Succession is the whole deal. A buyer needs a cardiologist, and the seller's willingness to stay on plus a 21-person staff with decade-long tenure are the two things that make a successful transition a real possibility. A 3.9x cash flow price, assuming it checks out, with optional real estate is reasonable if the therapy book transfers. The natural buyer is a cardiology group or an operator who already believes in EECP, because this is a conviction purchase on a single modality, not just a medical practice.

Location: Midwest (not disclosed) | Asking Price: $40.0M | Revenue: ~$14.3M | EBITDA: $5.0M | EBITDA Margin: ~35% | Price / EBITDA: 8.0x

Physician-owned urology group founded more than two decades ago, marketed at a $40 million valuation with proposed structures including 20-25% rollover equity and an earnout. The listing is candid that gross revenue has declined in recent years because the group deliberately wound down its pharmacy services as reimbursement changed, while EBITDA margins held above 30%. Patient base is Medicare-heavy with commercial and Medicaid alongside. The stated ambition is to serve as the seed for a urology roll-up with a strategic or capital partner.

My take: Eight times EBITDA is platform pricing, and the honest question is whether this is a platform or a practice that would like to be one. Established urology platforms with management infrastructure, multiple markets, and proven integration playbooks earn that multiple; a single-market physician-owned group earns it only from a buyer who believes it can become the platform, which is precisely what the listing is selling with its roll-up language and rollover equity structure. Urology is also a specialty where consolidation is well advanced. Solaris Health, U.S. Urology Partners, and several other sponsor-backed groups have been building for years, so a de novo platform thesis has to explain why the remaining independent groups will join this one rather than the incumbents. The disclosed reason for the revenue decline, exiting in-office pharmacy as reimbursement compressed, is a rational margin-protecting move and better than an unexplained slide, but a buyer should verify that the remaining ancillaries (imaging, pathology, ASC relationships if any) are compliant under Stark and AKS and durable under current reimbursement. Note also that the listing flags its latest figures as projections, and the earnout framing suggests this has been on the market for a while. Both are negotiating information.

Location: Ohio | Asking Price: $800K | Revenue: $550K | Cash Flow: $220K | CF Margin: 40% | Price / Revenue: 1.5x | Price / Cash Flow: 3.6x

Twenty-plus-year-old organization operating in the third-party fertility ecosystem, providing screening, matching, and case coordination services for intended parents and fertility clinics, with referral-driven demand and long-standing clinical relationships.

My take: Read the description carefully: this is an agency, not a clinic. Screening, matching, and coordination in third-party reproduction means donor and surrogacy services, the connective tissue between intended parents, donors, carriers, and the fertility clinics that do the medicine. That distinction simplifies the acquisition enormously. No medical licensure, no CPOM analysis, no payer credentialing, just a services business whose assets are clinic relationships, a candidate pipeline, and 20 years of reputation in a field where trust is crucial. The demand backdrop is favorable, with third-party reproduction growing and fertility platforms increasingly acquiring adjacent services, but the risks are specific to the model: revenue likely concentrates in a handful of clinic relationships that are personal to the owner, matching businesses carry reputational and legal exposure if a case goes wrong, and the regulatory environment for surrogacy varies sharply by state, which limits where the business can operate and grow. Diligence should cover contract structure and escrow handling for client funds, case volume trends by clinic, and what actually retains the referral relationships post-close. At $800K, the buyer universe includes fertility platforms and egg banks bolting on coordination capability, an established agency consolidating, or an owner-operator buying a 40% margin business with a two-decade head start. Small check, but my take is that this is an unusually defensible niche.

Location: Metro Philadelphia, PA | Asking Price: $2.7M | Revenue: $1.8M | Cash Flow: $500K | CF Margin: 28% | Price / Revenue: 1.5x | Price / Cash Flow: 5.4x

Franchised urgent care operating in a built-out space of more than 3,000 square feet with ample parking in the greater Philadelphia region.

My take: Single-site urgent care typically changes hands at 3x to 4x cash flow, and 5.4x asks a buyer to pay up for the franchise wrapper, the buildout, and the metro location. A franchise brings brand recognition and operating systems, but it also brings ongoing royalty drag, a franchisor approval process that slows any transfer, and constraints on how a buyer can operate or eventually exit. The buildout has replacement value, but buyers pay for cash flow, not drywall. Metro Philadelphia is a dense, competitive urgent care market where hospital systems and national chains keep adding sites, which pressures both visit volume and payer rates over time. The other structural issue: single-site urgent cares are hard to exit upward, because the platforms that pay strong multiples generally buy clusters or build de novo rather than acquiring one-offs, so the realistic future buyer is another owner-operator, unless you can patch a few of these together. Diligence on visit volumes by month against prior years, payer mix, provider staffing costs, and the franchise agreement's transfer and territory terms. At something closer to 4x this is a reasonable owner-operator purchase; 5.4x is optimism.

Location: Pontotoc County, OK | Asking Price: $769K | Revenue: $1.4M | Cash Flow: $257K | CF Margin: 18% | Price / Revenue: 0.55x | Price / Cash Flow: 3.0x

Profitable urgent care in Class A space in a small Oklahoma city, with advanced equipment, a loyal staff, and what the listing describes as the only X-ray capability outside the local hospital.

My take: The strategic advantage here is literal and unusually easy to verify: one clinic, one hospital, and no other X-ray in town. In rural healthcare, that kind of positional advantage substitutes for the demographic growth a metro clinic would sell you, because the clinic functions as infrastructure rather than a competitor among many. The 18% margin is the offsetting fact. Urgent care economics pit provider costs against visit volume, and thin margins in a small market usually mean the staffing model is expensive relative to volume, which is the permanent condition of rural medicine. A buyer should understand exactly how the clinic is staffed (physician versus NP or PA coverage, and what Oklahoma's supervision rules require), how visit volume tracks seasonally, and the payer mix, which in rural Oklahoma will lean government-heavy. The relationship with the local hospital deserves attention too, since the hospital is simultaneously the clinic's competitor, its referral destination, and usually its most logical acquirer, so it’s a little surprising to see something like this marketed this way. At 3.0x cash flow and roughly half of revenue, the price is fair for what it is: an SBA-financeable owner-operator purchase of a community asset with a defensible position and a modest ceiling. The right buyer is a clinician who wants to own their own shop or maybe a small regional operator adding a protected market, not anyone underwriting a growth story.

(Sword / Headspace)

The app that taught millions to breathe through their stress

got sold in a filing, with minimal press.

No banner, no blog post, no CEO cheer,

just sixty days' notice made suddenly clear.

Three billion in twenty-one, now, if reports are true,

a couple hundred million when the paperwork's through.

So breathe in, breathe out, and let valuations go.

The market's a teacher, and this week it taught low.

Thanks for the read, and let me know what you think!

-Will

The Weekly Checkup is published every Tuesday morning. Written for general informational purposes. Access to Scope Research healthcare M&A databases or valuation consulting engagements through HealthFMV require a separate agreement.