MediBuddy, a digital healthcare platform, announced today that it has acquired the ‘vHealth by Aetna’ business (Indian Health Organization) in India. 

When asked if Medibuddy will retain the workforce from vHealth after this acquisition, Satish Kannan, Co-Founder and CEO at MediBuddy told Businessworld that the existing IHO management team and employees across all functions will continue to be employed by IHO, which is now part of MediBuddy. The assurance comes after MediBuddy laid off 200 employees, or about 8 per cent of its total workforce, in a one-time restructuring exercise earlier this month.

 Customers from 'vHealth by Aetna' will be added to MediBuddy's platform, further strengthening the company's existing customer base of 30 million. MediBuddy recently concluded its merger with DocsApp and the company raised USD 125 million in a Series C funding in the first quarter of 2022.

 vHealth, is a primary healthcare service provider in India. It offers subscription-based primary healthcare services to customers such as telehealth consultations, an extensive outpatient network, pharmacy, diagnostics and dental care. 

Commenting on the acquisition, Satish Kannan, co-founder and CEO of MediBuddy, said, "We made a strategic decision to go ahead with this critical acquisition as it is in line with our commitment to making high quality healthcare accessible to a billion people. We believe that this acquisition will further strengthen our market leadership by giving impetus to our distribution channels, helping us scale our operations and offerings to a much wider section of the population." 

Anurag Khosla, CEO of Aetna India and IHO, said, "MediBuddy and ‘vHealth share a common vision of a future, where primary and digital healthcare comes together to redefine accessibility and delivery of quality healthcare services." 

Over the next six months, ‘vHealth by Aetna’ business will transition to being rebranded as ‘MediBuddy vHealth’, said the company.  

The digital healthcare platform has a partner network of 90,000 plus doctors, 7,100 plus hospitals and clinics, 4,000 plus diagnostic centers, 2,500 plus pharmacies along with a team size of 2200 plus members, as per the company.

MediBuddy, with its healthcare services available in 16 Indian languages, intends to bridge the Urban-Rural quality healthcare divide, the company added. MediBuddy offers online and offline doctor consultations, medicine delivery, lab tests at home, mental health consultations, surgery care, among other healthcare services.