Acquiring Talkspace would do Amwell a world of good

Boston-based telehealth company, Amwell, offers a wide range of services such as urgent, primary and special care primarily on a B2B basis through contracts with payers as well as employers.

The company has been facing challenges in the market and its share now trades at $3.40 as against $18, when it first went public on September 17, 2020 under the symbol AMWL.

Its unified platform ‘Converge’ accounts for 16% of the total visits ending Q3, 2022, the reason a deal with Talkspace could expand its patient network and offerings, in a highly competitive field for both sides.

If the merger comes through, it means a user can sign into Talkspace for a text chat with a therapist and then jump on to a video session via the Amwell platform to provide continuous care between appointments via text messaging.

As far as Amwell is concerned, it already enjoys a strong foothold in the behavioral health market, especially after acquiring the digital health platform ‘Silvercloud Health and Conversa Health’ both for $320 million.

While Silvercloud provides its users with coaching and self-guided support programs, Conversa offers patient engagement tools via text messaging services.

In May 2022, Amwell announced a new therapy service ‘Amwell Comprehensive’, which combined the Silvercloud programs with the virtual health care offered by Amwell’s clinical health partner, Amwell Medical Group.

Additionally, in August 2022, CVS Health roped in Amwell to provide its new virtual primary health care offering including on-demand behavioral health services.

Amwell CEO, Ido Schoenberg, said ” The CVS Virtual Care digital front door is an exciting new initiative, and we are honored to be selected as the backdrop for this vision”.

In addition to the CVS tie-up, Amwell continues to lay stress on its behavioral health services at large by planning to fully integrate its D2C behavioral health subsidiary, Silvercloud, to provide best care, patient benefits and substantial cost savings.

For Amwell to acquire Talkspace would therefore result in the former getting a larger market share of telebehavioral health and thereby expand its services through Talkspace’s B2B pivot which has the potential to complement the business model of Amwell.

Trust analyst, Jailendra Singh, pointed out in a note that TALK’s B2B business potential could be the main asset for Amwell as the company would then be able to generate extra revenue, given the strong payee relationship combination existing between the two companies. Singh has a hold rating and a $5 price target on Amwell.