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In its first major transaction since a spin-off late last year, AI-focused healthcare shop Swoop has acquired online patient community MyHealthTeam.

Financial terms of the deal, which was announced Tuesday morning, were not disclosed.

MyHealthTeam will maintain its branding and operate as a separate business unit of Swoop run by CEO Eric Peacock, who co-founded the company in 2012 with Mary Ray. Peacock will report to Ron Elwell, Swoop’s founder and CEO. 

MyHealthTeam, which supplies medically-approved information and disease support, “is very complementary to Swoop,” explained Elwell. 

“We don’t see this as an acquisition where there are a lot of synergies. This is a new line of business,” he added. 

While Swoop offers pharma clients the ability to reach large swaths of the population through programmatic targeting, MyHealthTeam operates much lower on the marketing funnel. 

Its more than 60 communities — spanning roughly 4.5 million registered members with various chronic and rare conditions — enable brands to connect with smaller yet highly engaged audiences.

“Clearly, the value for pharma brands, from a marketing and advertising standpoint, exists on these two ends of the spectrum,” noted Elwell. 

Including the 4.5 million opt-in users, about 30 million people come to MyHeathTeam’s social networks annually, according to Peacock. 

By bringing its communities under the umbrella of Swoop, whose services also include building custom audience segments and MLR-approved conversational AI agents, the acquisition promises to help MyHealthTeam scale the use of its platform.

“Swoop reaches everyone everywhere, at every channel,” said Peacock. “So this [acquisition] is not only an opportunity for our pharma clients, who connect with the community in the community, to have it reinforced everywhere else. It’s also an opportunity for us to more efficiently reach more patients.”

Given there are about 150 million people in the country living with a chronic condition, the companies see quite a bit of potential.

“We want to build on that, because [patients who opt in] are always going to be much more engaged,” said Elwell. “Together, we can bring more resources to bear on that, and we think that has great long-term advantages for patients and for us.”

The acquisition comes just months after Swoop’s September spin-off from Real Chemistry, a 2024 MM+M Agency 100 honoree. The ad-tech firm is still majority-owned by private equity firm New Mountain Capital, which also owns Real Chemistry.

Swoop was acquired by Real Chemistry in 2021 alongside IPM.ai. Real Chemistry also bought AI shop ConversationHealth in 2022, followed by doctor-focused ad-tech firm TI Health in 2023 and medical marketing agency Avant Healthcare last year.

Now under direct PE ownership, Elwell said he expects Swoop will “do more this year” in the way of acquisitions. 

“This is a great way for us to start the year, and there will be opportunities for us to [do other deals],” he said. 

The deal follows a trend of PE-backed agencies using M&A to add capabilities in order to scale up their omnichannel offerings. 

In one recent case, Relevate Health bought the pharma unit of video game maker Level Ex from medical device maker Brainlab last year.

As for now, Swoop will set about integrating MyHealthTeam’s social communities into its omnichannel offering. 

The combined firm can provide clients one place to consolidate programmatic buying with the largest U.S.-based opt-in patient community, Elwell said, driving efficiencies while working more seamlessly across marketing efforts and ensuring privacy.

For instance, pharma brands will now be able to reach community members and connect to those patients’ doctors, he said, educating both sides of the market. 

Elwell said his plan also involves enabling brands — once they engage with a patient on the community site — to be able to extend that reach and reengage with them programmatically.

“So being able to say, OK, I know that they just saw this content and they were engaged with it. Now, we want to be able to reach them in a lower-cost way, programmatically, to reach out and reinforce that message to those same patients,’” Elwell explained. 

To that end, the tie-up allows Swoop to provide pharma clients with a wealth of “zero-party data” — data which users voluntarily and intentionally share. This includes how patients talk about their condition with other patients and caregivers as well as the “trigger words” used.

“That’s incredibly powerful information that brands can use to help understand how better to communicate with patients at different phases of the patient journey,” Elwell said. “It also helps inform how we think about building segments as well as the best way and best time to reach patients programmatically.”

Indeed, the additional information can help personalize content. 

“Swoop has this vast database of health claims data,” Peacock said, adding that he plans to launch another 10 new patient communities this year. 

“They have the machine learning and data scientist teams and the AI. It really helps you figure out where somebody is in their patient journey and make sure you’re delivering information to them that’s relevant. Right now, that’s harder to do if you’re just relying on your [own] content.”

Related: Swoop teams with iSpot to advance audience capabilities for pharma marketers