Ambler, Sanilea merge to manage and optimise medical transportation in France

Paris-based Ambler, a startup that digitises and optimises medical transport to make it more sustainable, announced on Tuesday, June 27, that it has merged with Sanilea, a company that claims to be a leader in the organisation of medical transport in France.

Previously competitors, the two medical transportation rivals aim to create a ‘Mission-led Company’ that will manage and optimise medical transportation.

Introduced in France in 2019 under the Pacte Law, a ‘Mission-led Company’ (‘société à mission’ in French) must declare its “raison d’être” and one or more social, societal, or environmental aims beyond profit. The objectives are consistent with the purpose and are outlined in the bylaws.

The entity’s new “raison d’être” is “to contribute to the efficiency of the care pathway and the sustainability of the healthcare system, in the face of economic and climatic challenges, by optimising patient transportation”.

Sanilea: Everything you need to know

Founded in 2013, Sanilea is a Limoges-based scale-up that uses digitisation to revolutionise medical transportation logistics.

When the scale-up was established, only a small portion of the medical transport industry was digitalised, and it was structured in a conventional manner. 

According to Sanilea, paramedics, hired taxis, and other businesses in the industry were all contacted by the carers themselves (through phone calls or even faxes).

This issue gave rise to the Sanilea firm and the early versions of its SpeedCall systems. A software that helps streamline operations and centralise requests so that healthcare personnel can concentrate on what they do best: looking after, helping, and transporting patients.

Large organisations like ORPEA, ELSAN, all the hospitals in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine area, the Saint-Joseph hospital group, Harmonie Ambulance, Jussieu Secours, and many more are among the regular users of these products.

Aim of the merger

This merger will result in a single service under a new brand, Amblea, in 2024.

Ambler mentions that the merger will be a significant step in reaching the essential size required to effectively carry out its programme to optimise regional transportation. The new company will in fact work with close to 900 healthcare facilities and 6,000 medical transportation businesses.

Thomas Bournac, Chairman of Amblea, says, “In the long run, the merger of Ambler and Sanilea aims to create a single application combining the strengths of each to offer an optimised service for all users. From September onwards, the teams will meet to define the next steps in the joint project.”

Amblea’s mission:

• Taking care of patients by locating a transporter in every situation
• Giving carers more time by freeing them of the strain of locating transports
• Helping small and medium-sized medical transportation firms travel less and better
• Helping to reduce spending to protect the healthcare system’s long-term sustainability
• Preserving the environment by travelling less and transferring more patients

Bournac says, “We want to make a clean break with our image as an intermediary, and move forward in line with medical transportation companies.”

This decision is backed up by concrete actions:

• Discontinuing combined tender submissions with medical transportation providers
• Bringing the economic structure of the transport industry closer to that of the historical players, like Sanilea
• Contacting medical transportation federations and taking interoperability problems with ERP systems into consideration

Bournac adds, “Beyond the merger, Amblea is rooted in the word “Asamblea” which means assembly. It embodies our desire to unite the actors of the medical transportation sector and the public authorities around a common objective: ensuring the sustainability of our healthcare system.”