What's at stake for the next wave of coronavirus vaccines

Hello,

Welcome to Insider Healthcare. I'm Lydia Ramsey Pflanzer, and this week in healthcare news:

We looked at how the next set of COVID-19 vaccine candidates are shaping up;
A consolidation tsunami is headed for digital healthcare;
We found 5 key takeaways from Bright Health's IPO filing.

If you're new to this newsletter, sign up here. Tips, comments? Email me at lramsey@insider.com or tweet @lydiaramsey125. Let's get to it...

Kate Bingham, Chair of the Government's Vaccine Taskforce, after starting her Novavax trial at the Royal Free Hospital, north London on October 13, 2020.
Kirsty O'Connor/PA Images via Getty Images

The next wave of COVID-19 vaccines

As the rollout of three authorized vaccines continues here in the US, other drugmakers are still carrying on in their pursuits to arm the world with more effective shots.

Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline on Monday said that their COVID-19 vaccine triggers a strong immune response, Andrew Dunn reports.

The companies are now looking at approval by the end of 2021.

Meanwhile, Novavax, which is close to getting the green light from the Food and Drug Administration for its coronavirus vaccine, still faces a key challenge.

Can it finish what it started?

Novavax could have the 'best' COVID-19 shot, but new delays are raising questions about the $10 billion biotech's path to profits

Ro cofounder Zachariah Reitano with Modern Fertility cofounders Afton Vechery (left) and Carly Leahy.
Ro

Digital health M&A is here

The funding boom for healthcare startups is, as you might expect, not slowing down just yet.

Healthcare startups raised $31.6 billion in the first three months of 2021, CB Insights reports.

Megan Hernbroth broke down the six investors making the most bets on digital health startups. Surprise, surprise: Tiger Global's at the top of the list.

All the funding is turning into M&A activity.

Most recently - Ro said on Wednesday that it's buying Modern Fertility.

It's a case of a well-funded startup (Ro) acquiring a smaller company (Modern Fertility) to keep growing.

And Ro isn't the only one acquiring. Cedar last week said it's buying rival Ooda Health, and Grand Rounds in March said that it's buying telehealth startup Dr. On Demand.

We're calling it the start of a "consolidation tsunami."

Well-funded healthcare startups are snatching up smaller companies to keep growing. It's the start of a consolidation tsunami.

Bright Health CEO Mike Mikan
Bright Health

Bright Health is the latest insurer startup to go up for an IPO

Speaking of acquisitions - health insurer Bright Health filed to go public on Wednesday, and its filings provided our best look yet at how the company is growing.

A lot of that growth is coming from acquisitions of other companies.

Of the five health insurance startups we've been tracking for the past few years-Alignment, Bright, Clover, Devoted, and Oscar-there's only one left that hasn't started the going-public process (as far as we know): Devoted Health.

We'll still be looking over insurance filings to see how Devoted is doing.

For the full year 2020, Devoted's losses deepened as it took on more members.

Even so, there's nothing quite like getting a look at a company's S-1 filing.