Private equity’s role in gastroenterology is shifting in 2025. While overall deal volume has slowed, acquisitions are getting larger, more strategic and increasingly subject to regulatory scrutiny.
Here are 10 things to know so far this year:
- GI PE deal volume nearly halved year over year, dropping from 26 in 2022 to 13 in 2023 – a slowdown that has carried into 2025 with fewer but larger transactions.
- Three major platforms — GI Alliance, Gastro Health and United Digestive — continue to dominate PE deal activity in 2025.
- Optum’s SCA Health expanded in early 2025 with the acquisition of U.S. Digestive Health, a platform of more than 250 providers, 40 sites and 24 ASCs
- About 1 in 10 gastroenterologists in the U.S. now practices within a private equity-backed group.
- Over the past decade, the number of GI practices with three to nine physicians has declined 41%, a consolidation trend accelerated by PE-backed platforms in 2025.
- In contrast, large practices with 500 or more physicians have increased 66%, signaling a rise of mega-groups often aligned with PE.
- One PE-backed GI group quadrupled its physician count and expanded into six states within two years of acquisition by Webster Equity Partners.
8. Cardinal Health entered GI in late 2024 with a $2.8 billion majority stake acquisition in GI Alliance, a deal shaping the 2025 market by signaling new corporate entrants into the specialty.
9. Reimbursement for colonoscopy with biopsy has declined nearly 40% over the past 15 years, leaving many independent GI groups financially vulnerable to PE partnerships in 2025.
10. Lawmakers in Oregon and Pennsylvania advanced oversight efforts in 2025, with Oregon signing a strict healthcare PE bill into law and Pennsylvania’s House passing legislation to expand review of medical practice acquisitions.
