Two southeastern Wisconsin health and wellness companies are merging.
Milwaukee-based Healics Inc. and Brookfield-based Interra Health Inc. will combine under the Healics name. The terms of the transaction, announced Thursday, were not disclosed.
The transaction is a merger of equals, with the owners of each company being equally involved in the new organization, said Patti Plough, president and chief executive officer of operations for Healics.
Interra Health, which has about 100 employees, offers employer wellness programs and on-site and near-site clinics. Its founders, Derek Boyce and Ryan Sommers, established the company in 2001 and initially offered workplace chiropractic and physical rehabilitation. Boyce and Sommers will still have active daily roles at Healics.
Healics also has about 100 employees nationwide. It specializes in employer-sponsored health and wellness programs. Founded in 1985, the company was originally known as Health Steps and focused on health and wellness software. Plough and Michael Naparalla, president and CEO of sales and marketing for Healics, purchased the company from the founder in 2011.
There are no plans for changes in employee count in the integration, Plough said.
For the time being, Interra’s 11,000-square-foot Brookfield office at 1675 N. Barker Road and Healics’ 11,000-square-foot Milwaukee office at 8919 W. Heather Ave., and the approximately 40 employees at each, will operate as usual. Long-term, the plan is to bring of all the employees together in one location.
Among the options for a joint space is a totally new office space or an expansion of Healics’ office. Healics was already considering tripling the size of its office, which is located on 2.5 acres, before the merger discussions began, Plough said. There is enough space to further enlarge the one-story building by adding two more floors, she said.
Combined, the organizations have about 600 clients representing about 200,000 participants and patients, including Blain’s Farm & Fleet, Trek Bicycle Corp. and Winnebago County. That last client is an example of an overlap, where both Interra and Healics had been providing services to the county and now will become one vendor, Plough said.
“Now that we’re coming together and (Winnebago has) all their services under one roof, one company providing them, they were more than thrilled,” she said.
The combination also opens up the opportunity to cross-sell services to each company’s client base, Plough said.
“We have a reputation and a heavy presence as one of the oldest and largest health risk assessment companies in the Midwest,” she said. “Merging with Interra, we are now able to offer our clients on-site or near site clinics.”
“The merger is bringing together two like-minded companies,” Boyce said. “Each has a driving passion to deliver a new, patient-centric approach to health care that includes wellness programs and clinics as core deliverables but also introduces forward-looking services that expand the entire continuum of care offered at workplaces.”
