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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: GoodRx Holdings, American Well Corp, Accolade, SOC Telemed and Teladoc

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – June 7, 2021 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: GoodRx Holdings, Inc. (GDRX - Free Report) , American Well Corporation (AMWL - Free Report) , Accolade, Inc. (ACCD - Free Report) , SOC Telemed, Inc. and Teladoc Health, Inc. (TDOC - Free Report) .

Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

Booming Telehealth Market Lures More IPO, M&A Deals

Of late, European tech company UK healthtech's startup Babylon Health announced that it will go public in the United States via a merger. Babylon Health provides online consultations and also has a symptom-checking app.

This most recent deal brings into notice the increasing trend of public offerings and acquisitions taking place in the lucrative telehealth industry.

The COVID-19 pandemic understandably perked up the telemedicine market, buoyed by the universally mandated protocols of staying-at-home and social distancing. The size of the telehealth market is ballooning and more and more companies are thronging the space to grab a pie of the very promising industry.

Digital Health IPO Going Strong for the Third Straight Year

Even before the COVID-19 had hit hard, the digital health market was witnessing a ramped-up activity. Companies in the digital health space were actively expanding their scale and size as technological percolation was boosting virtual healthcare. In 2019, entities like Health Catalyst, Livongo Health, Phreesia and Change Healthcare went public. Speculations were rife then whether the IPO wave will continue blowing in 2020.

But the IPO trend gained further momentum with COVID-19 acting as a trigger. Remote healthcare gathered steam as people were forced to stay indoors to stem the coronavirus spread. Given that scenario, virtual healthcare was the only viable option left to address healthcare needs.

This led to a stratospheric rise in demand for products and services for online health monitoring. Many privately-held companies thus capitalizing on this current environment walked the IPO route to raise money from the public for expanding their scale and size. As evidence, in 2020, U.S. telehealth companies, namely GoodRx HoldingsAmerican Well Corp.AccoladeSOC Telemed and many others went public.

In 2021, Hims & Hers Health, Inc. came out with an initial public offering. It is a multi-specialty telehealth platform that connects consumers to licensed healthcare professionals, thereby enabling medical care for multiple conditions related to mental health, sexual health, dermatology, primary care and more.

As IPOs are being floated, acquisitions of telehealth companies and other healthcare companies are also fast catching up.

This kind of buyouts helps players integrate vertically. It also suggests that the telehealth space is evolving rapidly and that companies wishing to get an instant presence are snapping up established players.

This year, Cigna purchased MDLive while UnitedHealthcare bought Change Healthcare to get an instant foothold in the telehealth market.

Investors' Most Desirable Place

Per MarketsandMarkets, the global telehealth market is expected to witness a CAGR of 37.7% over the 2020-2025 forecast period.

Experts say that the digital health sector is attracting people in droves and fetching in private investments because of a combination of strong product suite, soaring revenues, efficient management teams, and massive markets with promising potential.

With higher telemedicine uptake, the telehealth companies naturally made the most of it by generating wealthy returns for investors. For instance, Teladoc Health, the oldest company in the telehealth space, skyrocketed 139% in 2020 compared with its industry's average of 9.7%.

Bottomline

Looking back at 2019, it seemed that the digital health IPO was just the beginning. Even though telehealth became more popular in recent years, it continues to draw takers from the industry, courtesy of technological revolution and the relaxation of Medicare telehealth regulations.

There still exist many companies, which are privately held and backed by venture capitalists. These may come out in the market with public offering, keeping the IPO blitz alive.

Among the stocks mentioned above, Teladoc, American Well and SOC Telemed currently carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

5 Stocks Set to Double

Each was hand-picked by a Zacks expert as the #1 favorite stock to gain +100% or more in 2020. Each comes from a different sector and has unique qualities and catalysts that could fuel exceptional growth.

Most of the stocks in this report are flying under Wall Street radar, which provides a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.

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