After scoring an investment of more than $230 million, an addiction treatment company based in King of Prussia plans to open eight more rehab centers with 1,200 beds in the Northeast by 2017.
The Recovery Treatment Centers of America announced on Wednesday that it had received $231.5 million in funding from New York health care investment firm Deerfield Management, allowing it to open more centers in places like Paoli, Chester County, and Blackwood, Camden County. The company's ultimate goal is to be one of the world's largest treatment companies for substance abuse and behavioral disorders.
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"Our goal is to make substance abuse treatment as readily available as treatment for other chronic diseases, such as diabetes and asthma," said CEO Brian O'Neill, a former real estate developer.
The company's methods for recovery involve keeping patients close to friends and family and building "Recovery Campuses" designed to have the atmosphere of "a college campus with Starbucks-like appeal."
The Recovery Campuses will open in:
• Mays Landing, N.J.
• Earleville, Md.
• Waldorf, Md.
• Danvers, Mass.
• Paoli, Pa.
• Upper Marlboro, Md.
• Blackwood, N.J.
Leslie Henshaw, a partner at Deerfield Management, said that there is "an urgent need for treatment options that integrate the entire continuum of care to achieve clinical efficacy that, to date, has been hard to deliver or document."
There were 22.7 million Americans last year who showed signs of substance abuse or dependence, but only 2.5 million received treatment, according to the RCA. The effects of heroin abuse have been particularly harrowing, with 2,400 Pennsylvania residents dying from opioid overdoses last year.