PE-backed AxelaCare acquires Ambient Healthcare

AxelaCare Health Solutions, a portfolio company of Harvest Partners, has bought Ambient Healthcare. No financial terms were disclosed. Based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Ambient is a provider of home intravenous therapies and nursing care in the southeastern U.S.

PRESS RELEASE

LENEXA, Kan., Jan. 5, 2015 – AxelaCare Health Solutions, a leading national provider of specialty home infusion services, announced today it has acquired Florida-based Ambient Healthcare, which offers home intravenous therapies and nursing care in the southeastern United States. The acquisition expands AxelaCare’s national home IV therapy network into the Southeast and follows AxelaCare’s recent acquisition of Advanced Care, a home IV therapy company in the New York-New Jersey metro area.

AxelaCare has been growing in excess of 40 percent annually since its inception in 2008.

The Ambient acquisition increases AxelaCare’s number of intravenous solutions pharmacies to 34 nationwide. Local pharmacies increase responsiveness to acute infusion service needs as well as broaden market coverage for national managed care accounts.

“Ambient is a highly regarded home infusion provider in the Southeast, and our team at AxelaCare is enthused about the potential Ambient brings in helping AxelaCare build a best-in-class, truly patient-focused, national home infusion company,” said AxelaCare CEO Ted Kramm. “Ambient has superior experience and expertise in acute infusion, excellent market coverage in the Southeast, and can apply AxelaCare’s CareExchange® platform for innovative patient outcomes data management technology.”

Acute home infusion covers a broad spectrum of therapies for patients discharged from hospitals and receiving infusion therapy at home. These include intravenous antibiotics, hydration, antiemetic, nutrition, inotropes, and other acute and chronic therapies delivered intravenously under a nurse’s care. Increasing use of these therapies shortens hospital stays, saves healthcare dollars, and improves recovery, while avoiding costly hospital readmissions.

Ambient Healthcare operates 16 pharmacy locations in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

“We are very excited about the inclusion of Ambient with AxelaCare, as our combined employee base shares the same values, principles and goals related to our collective business focus,” said Ambient President and CEO George Overmeyer.

“The preponderance of credit for the growth and maturation of our company belongs to our employees. They have been assertive, tenacious and driven in building a company that provides best in class service to its patients in the infusion industry,” he added.

“AxelaCare’s strategic acquisitions have significantly expanded its market growth in the national home infusion sector, and the company has an efficient, scalable model that should gain wider acceptance as a larger share of the population seeks access to home infusion services,” said Jay Wilkins, senior managing director at Harvest Partners, LP. AxelaCare is a Harvest Partners portfolio company.

“We are pleased to continue as investors with this great team of clinicians and business builders that focuses on keeping patients healthy, said Robert Haft, managing partner, Morgan Noble Healthcare Partners, an Ambient Healthcare investor.

About AxelaCare Health Solutions

Based in Lenexa, Kansas, AxelaCare is a leading provider of specialized immune globulin (IgG) therapy and other intravenous home infusion therapies. Founded by a nurse and pharmacist team and focused on patient care first, AxelaCare is the market leader in supporting outcomes research for immune therapy and has created the industry’s first electronic patient outcomes assessment technology, CareExchange®. AxelaCare has experienced tremendous growth, added top-flight management and employee teams in nursing, patient advocacy, pharmacy, sales and customer service. AxelaCare is also actively acquiring regional and local infusion pharmacies to grow its local market presence and deploy CareExchange® nationwide.

About Ambient Healthcare

Headquartered in Ft. Lauderdale, Ambient Healthcare is a company that provides home infusion, specialty pharmacy and nursing services in the southeastern United States. Patients can receive services in the home, infusion suites or other alternate settings. Multi-disciplinary teams of pharmacists, dieticians and nurses provide Ambient’s 24-hour per day, seven-days a-week services. Clinical care is focused on promoting patient compliance and reducing unnecessary hospitalizations, while providing care in settings most suitable for serving patient needs.

About Harvest Partners

Founded in 1981, Harvest Partners, LP (www.harvpart.com) is a leading New York-based private equity investment firm pursuing management buyouts and recapitalizations of middle market companies in North America. Harvest focuses on acquiring profitable companies in the business and industrial services, manufacturing and distribution, healthcare, midstream energy, and consumer products and retail sectors. This strategy leverages Harvest’s 31 years of experience in financing organic and acquisition-oriented growth companies.