Hinge Health goes public, sign of new interest in digital health sector

Mario Aguilar covers technology in health care, including artificial intelligence, virtual reality, wearable devices, telehealth, and digital therapeutics. His stories explore how tech is changing the practice of health care and the business and policy challenges to realizing tech’s promise. He’s also the co-author of the free, twice weekly STAT Health Tech newsletter. You can reach Mario on Signal at mariojoze.13.

Digital physical therapy company Hinge Health went public Thursday morning, raising $437 million at a $2.6 billion valuation. The company is a crucial test case for whether digital health companies, for all their glitz and ambition, can produce real business results.

CEO Dan Perez, who co-founded the company in 2014, knows that people are watching. After dozens of companies went public from 2020 to 2022, it’s been quiet for years. Entrepreneurs and advocates for digital health could use a winner to reassure investors and the insurers and employers who buy health tech solutions for their populations. Many are closely watching the outcome to know whether it’s truly safe to bet on digital health right now. The prospects for the digital health company Omada Health’s expected public offering may well depend on how Hinge does.

“Somebody had to open up the markets,” Perez told STAT Thursday morning, before the stock had officially started trading. “You’ve got to be bold if you’re going to automate the delivery of care. And so we figured we’d be bold and open up the markets for digital health.”