Virgin Pulse Acquires Welltok: Q&A with Christopher Michalak, CEO

// By Jane Weber Brubaker //

In recent years, the healthcare industry has been moving away from its traditional focus on episodic care toward wellness, prevention, and population health. The recent acquisition of Welltok by Virgin Pulse in October 2021 underscores that this movement is coming from multiple directions.

Welltok and Virgin Pulse have primarily focused on the employer and payer space. Both companies provide technology solutions that enable client organizations to reduce healthcare expenses by helping employees better manage their health. The goal of the merger is to “accelerate the company’s ability to serve substantially more clients, consumers, patients, and members across the full healthcare continuum — employers, health systems, health plans,” according to the October 7 announcement.

Welltok’s 2017 acquisition of Tea Leaves, a customer relationship management (CRM) and physician relationship management (PRM) solution provider, gave it a strong foothold in health systems. Tea Leaves’ client base included 30 percent of the top U.S. health systems and more than 400 hospitals, supporting a key strategy of the acquisition: to “propel Welltok’s growth within the hospital market,” according to the announcement.

Christopher Michalak, CEO, Virgin Pulse

Virgin Pulse CEO Christopher Michalak stated in the announcement of the Welltok acquisition, “Combining Welltok’s ability to identify and motivate consumers to initiate and complete specific health actions, with Virgin Pulse’s ability to engage users in managing and making the best possible decisions about their health and wellbeing every day will provide clients, consumers, patients, and members a clear path to achieving health outcomes and demonstrable cost savings.”

We interviewed Michalak to learn more about the acquisition and how it intersects with health systems. Read the full Q&A here.

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