Thirty Madison buys The Pill Club’s assets following bankruptcy

Chronic care management platform Thirty Madison has acquired the assets of online birth control pharmacy The Pill Club following the company’s bankruptcy in April. 

New York-based Thirty Madison purchased over 100,000 patient files from the bankrupt company for $32.3 million, according to Axios. 

Thirty Madison said that thanks to its strategic asset purchase, the company will ensure continuity of care for the over 100,000 patients through its Nurx brand, a direct-to-consumer women’s health company best known for its online birth control prescriptions. 

“We are excited to continue our ongoing commitment to building a leading women’s health offering through Nurx, our women’s healthcare brand. We are thrilled to welcome this new cohort of patients and provide them with high-quality care that will not only address their reproductive health needs, but also broaden their options to mental health, skincare, and more to achieve optimal health,” Thirty Madison said via a post on LinkedIn. 

THE LARGER TREND 

The Pill Club launched in 2016 and raised $51 million Series B just three years later and another $41.9 million in 2021.

The company briefly changed its name to Favor, but following a lawsuit from a restaurant and retail delivery company that also used the name, returned to its original branding.

The women’s health company came under fire in February when the California Department of Justice accused it of billing Medi-Cal for services it had not provided, allegedly submitting claims for 30-minute face-to-face counseling sessions when its nurse practitioners didn’t have direct or real-time contact with patients. 

The California Department of Insurance said the birth control provider would bill for in-person visits when nurses were only reviewing patient questionnaires and allegedly dispensed female condoms to beneficiaries who did not want or ask for the contraceptives, billing Medi-Cal significantly above the retail price. 

The Pill Club reached an $18.3 million settlement with California authorities for allegedly defrauding the state’s Medicaid program, with $15 million to be paid to the DOJ and $3.3 million to the CDI. 

The settlement came just days after a state court unsealed a whistleblower complaint against the company, which showed former nurse practitioners alleged it had defrauded private insurers in at least 38 states.

According to a statement from their attorneys regarding the settlement, the whistleblowers would receive approximately $5 million. 

The Pill Company subsequently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April. 

Meanwhile, Thirty Madison has garnered substantial investment, closing a $47 million funding round in 2020 and scoring $140 million in Series C funding in 2021, pushing the company into unicorn status with a valuation of over $2 billion and a total raise of over $210 million. 

The specialty healthcare company purchased the female-focused digital healthcare platform Nurx in 2022.