CSAM EHealth offers solutions

Photo: Thomas Brun / NTB scanpix
There was a celebration at the opening bell when CSAM Health was listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange with Merkur Marked.

RASMUS FALCK
Oslo

CSAM Health A/S, was founded in Oslo in 2005, and since then, it has become a dominant player in specialized eHealth platforms in the Nordic region. CSAM offers solutions in connected health care, medical imaging, women and children’s health, emergency and acute care, medication management, and laboratory information management systems. 

Their main headquarters remain in Oslo, with another office in Tromsø. In addition, CSAM has 12 offices in six countries: Stockholm and Gothenburg in Sweden, Karlstad and Copenhagen in Denmark, Helsinki, Oulu, and Tampere in Finland, Warwickshire in England, and a software subsidiary in the Philippines. 

In recent years, there’s been a shift in much of the world toward e-health care. Medical histories have been digitized into electronic health records. Portals provide patient and doctor access to test results, exchange of information, and referral requests. While there were some telemedicine appointments, as well as software to facilitate one-on-one visits before the coronavirus, tele-health services have ballooned since the advent of COVID-19. Physicians want to limit in-patient visits, and patients do not want to take chances of potential exposure by visiting a high-risk venue. 

CSAM provides specialized software that makes it easier for health-care professionals and organizations to manage workflow.

“Digital trends have driven new possibilities in health care, changing diagnostic processes, improving treatment experience and outcome for patients, increasing information sharing across the sector, and expanding access to health-care services,” said Glenn Kenneth Bruun, CSAM’s chief strategy officer, on the company website. “These trends strengthen the need for niche eHealth software, like CSAM’s, that facilitate the specialized processes and workflows used by health-care professionals and organizations.”

“We’ve seen a rapid upscaling of technology-enabled remote health care—from e-prescriptions, to virtual appointments, to the increased use of patient-centered self-care platforms,” said Kjetil Sanders, the company’s chief technology officer. With the arrival of COVID-19, these needs have become all the more pressing. “Almost overnight, in-person primary care went virtual, and non-urgent services transitioned to digital remote care tools,” he said.

Whether within or outside of the COVID era, telemedicine solutions can improve numerous areas of health-care quality, according to Sanders, by limiting or even preventing the need to be at the hospital. “They also make health-care data more accessible to patients and improve access to care, no longer requiring patients to take time off work or wait for long periods,” he said, adding that “remote care is especially important for people with mobility problems or those living in remote communities.”

With increased accessibility for doctors and patients, and because patients are seeing different doctors in different locations who can also access that data, it is critical to confront issues of security, privacy, accuracy, connectivity, and interoperability. Interoperability, according to CSAM, is “the ability to send and receive medical information from different sources between different systems, organizations, or locations.” In a complex health-care setting like Europe, interoperability is vital and requires development of cloud technologies, big data, and artificial intelligence. Progress in these areas is already underway, with more and more people using apps on their mobile devices that can monitor different health factors, which doctors can access remotely.

“Connectivity and interoperability are integral to realizing the full potential of health data for improving patient care,” said Sanders. “And as interoperability increases, so, too, does the demand for niche solutions that can facilitate the wide variety of specialized workflows across different domains within the health care system,” which is where CSAM comes in.

“CSAM works closely with customers to understand how digital trends affect their business,” said Bruun. “We partner with customers and users to continuously develop solutions that deliver the greatest value for their organizations.”

In September, CSAM announced the closing of its offering of NOK 300 million (about $32 million) senior secured bonds maturing in 2024. Net proceeds from this bond issue will be used for refinancing existing debt and general corporate purposes.

On Oct. 9, the company began trading on the Merkur Market in Oslo Børs (the Oslo Stock Exchange). According to CFO Einar Bonnevie in a press release, CSAM was incredibly happy with the listing as it “provides access to capital that will allow us to accelerate the company’s growth.” CSAM raised NOK 825 million (about $89 million) from private Nordic and international investors. 

“We are truly delighted by the level of interest that CSAM received from investors both within the Nordics and internationally,” said CEO Sverre Flatby in the press release. 

Last year, CSAM Health A/S had NOK 125 million (about $14 million) in revenue, up from NOK 64 million (about $7 million) in 2018. Profits before taxes were NOK 38 million (about $4 million) up from a loss of NOK 11 million (about $1 million) in 2018.

With a one- to two-week admission process, Merkur Market has one of the fastest admission processes in Europe. The reporting obligations following admission are also simpler. The market was established in January 2016 by Oslo Børs for small- to medium-size growth companies. The equity capital market opened quickly, especially in the technology, seafood, and health sectors, after the first wave of coronavirus. So-called green investments have also been popular.

CSAM Health was listed as No. 100 of the new companies listed on the Oslo Børs since Merkur Market was opened. That meant extra cake after the bell-ringing ceremony. For investments in companies that trade on Merkur Market, the calculation of wealth tax for Norwegian investors is based on the company’s book value, not on its market capitalization, which is important, given Norway’s wealth taxes. 

Merkur Market will change its name to Euronext Growth in November when Oslo Børs starts to use the new trading platform, Optiq.

This article originally appeared in the Nov. 13, 2020, issue of The Norwegian American. To subscribe, visit SUBSCRIBE or call us at (206) 784-4617.