Health insurance giant Cigna is escalating its interest in startup and innovative ventures, launching a $250 million fund to develop “promising startups and growth-stage companies.”Cigna Ventures will focus on three areas: insights and analytics; digital health and retail; care delivery/management , the health insurer said Wednesday. The increased emphasis on investing for the future comes as Cigna works through the regulatory process to close its acquisition of Express Scripts, the large pharmacy benefit management (PBM) company. The launch of the fund is a more formal step to Cigna’s already active effort in the venture capital space. The insurer has already invested in several companies including digital therapeutics firm Omada Health, artificial intelligence firm Prognos and telehealth provider MDLive. “Our partnership with Cigna has been about so much more than capital,” Omada CEO and co-founder Sean Duffy said.

Source: Forbes September 12, 2018 11:26 UTC