LifeMasters Supported Self Care Inc., a healthcare company whose financial backers include Intel Corp. and Pacific Life Insurance Co., has moved its headquarters from Irvine to South San Francisco.
The move came about because David Strand, LifeMasters’ chief executive, lives in the Bay area.
“We plan on maintaining a continuing presence in Orange County,” Strand said in a statement.
Christobel Selecky, LifeMasters’ former chief executive and executive chairman, works out of LifeMasters’ Irvine office. So does Chief Financial Officer Debra Morris.
LifeMasters counts some 25 workers in Irvine, including ones in financial operations and its sales support staff.
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LifeMasters’ Web site: used by patients, employers, health plans |
The company runs a Web site that lets patients track medical records, appointments and prescriptions. They also can interact with nurses and other healthcare professionals via the site. The business is known as disease management.
LifeMasters’ other services include data mining and risk management services for healthcare providers.
The company has more than 350,000 patients it works with on managing diseases such as heart problems, respiratory ills and diabetes. Many LifeMasters patients have chronic conditions that are costly to deal with.
Disease management is a fast-growing segment. Figures from Boston Consulting Group Inc. show that the market grew from $68 million in 1997 to $500 million in 2000. It’s projected to reach $10 billion by 2010.
LifeMasters’ customers include health plans, employers, public and private retirement systems and government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Large clients include Aetna Inc., the Hartford, Conn.-based insurer, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio and Florida’s Medicaid program.
Rivals include CorSolutions Medical Inc. of Buffalo Grove, Ill., along with a unit of San Francisco’s McKesson Corp., and American Healthways Inc. of Nashville, Tenn.
In January, LifeMasters lined up $19 million worth of financing to back its expansion plans, including opening a patient call center in San Antonio, Texas, early in the second quarter.
The funding includes a $12 million term loan with Orix Venture Finance LLC and a $7 million revolving credit line from Detroit-based bank Comerica Inc.’s technology and life sciences division.
Dr. David Goodman, a Harvard University-trained physician and bioengineer, founded LifeMasters 11 years ago. The company has attracted more than $40 million worth of venture funding since 1994.
Backers also include some of the technology industry’s heaviest hitters, such as Intel’s venture capital arm, Lightspeed Venture Partners and J. & W. Seligman & Co.
Pacific Life, the Newport Beach insurer, also has provided funding.
Intel Chairman Andy Grove actually spawned his company’s interest in LifeMasters. Grove was using the Internet to learn more about the prostate cancer he battled during the mid-1990s, according to Selecky.
Selecky, who worked with what used to be FHP Inc. (now part of PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. of Cypress) was succeeded as chief executive by Strand, whose background includes stints at Allina Health Systems, a Minneapolis-based hospital network, and Medica Health Plans, which covered some 1 million people in Minnesota, the Dakotas and Wisconsin.
The privately held company should bring in sales of some $85 million this year. Besides south San Francisco and Irvine, the 500-worker company has offices in Rancho Cordova, Albuquerque, N.M., and San Antonio.
