The Hartford Business Journal recently published its 2023 Power 25: Health Care list. The annual feature “identifies leaders who are having a significant impact on the industry and public health” and includes Goodroot CEO Mike Waterbury on an impressive list of leaders and innovators in an area with an outsized influence on health insurance.
Below is the full write up from the HBJ, which also named Goodroot to its 2023 Tech Companies to Watch list earlier this year.
Michael Waterbury, a veteran of the managed-care industry, is the CEO of Canton-based Goodroot, an umbrella company that provides capital, finance, legal, HR, sales and marketing support to scale healthcare technology companies.
Goodroot, so far, has helped launch eight companies focused on helping employers lower health and pharmacy benefit costs. The companies provide a range of services, including benefit navigation, pharmacy benefit consulting and health engagement.
They range from Nuwae, which works with pharmaceutical companies, payers and patients toward a goal of having a single price for a drug, to RemedyOne, which analyzes a company’s existing pharmacy benefits program, looking for ways to capture more in drug rebates.
Goodroot also offers services to health insurers through companies such as Penstock, which provides audit and payment integrity technology.
Goodroot says its portfolio companies have already saved clients more than a billion dollars in healthcare costs.
Waterbury told HBJ earlier this year, Goodroot may need to launch 20 to 30 targeted services and/or companies before it can truly change the incentive system that leads to higher healthcare costs.
Goodroot was recognized in 2022 and 2023 by the Real Leaders Impact Awards for mission-driven companies.
Waterbury was named an “Entrepreneur of the Year” finalist by Ernst & Young in 2020, and was listed on the Real Leaders “Speakers to Watch” list for 2023.
