Acquisitions & Agreements
Acquisitions & Agreements
• A.D.A.M. Internet Health (ADAM; Atlanta), a developer of online health information, said it has acquired a library of medically accurate video-based sequences that display human physiological conditions via 3-D animation. Devel oped by an Australian firm, the library adds to ADAM’s health information-related portfolio and will be enhanced with new streaming video technology and broadband services. With its partner, CNN Newsource Sales, a Times Warner company, ADAM will distribute the new video content to television news to illustrate health and medical news coverage, according to a company statement. It also plans to leverage the acquisition for clinical applications in its software components group and other Internet projects in development.
• Coram Healthcare (Denver) has purchased Cog nitive Design Associates (Upper Saddle River, NJ), a consulting firm that develops clinical staff education processes using computer and Internet-based training strategies. Coram said in a statement that the acquisition is intended to strengthen its integration of clinical, operational, sales and marketing functions and be the core of the company’s new Clinical Research and Medical Information Division. The new division will be headed by David McCormick, formerly vice president of pharmacy services for Coram. Coram is a provider of home infusion therapy, operating from 90 locations in 44 states and Ontario, Canada.
• Data Dimensions (DD; Bellevue, WA) has been retained by Unicare Life & Health Insurance Co. (Woodland Hills, CA) to be the sole third-party provider for application maintenance and support services associated with Unicare’s HanStar-2 applications. DD will provide analysis, programming, testing, and production support services during the course of the agreement through its Applications Solution Center in Galway, Ireland, in combination with on-shore consulting resources. Unicare provides managed care and specialty health care services throughout the U.S. and is the national operating unit of WellPoint Health Networks, a managed care company with more than 6.8 million members.
• First Consulting Group (FCG; Long Beach, CA), a provider of consulting, operations improvement and information management services for the healthcare, pharmaceutical and life sciences industries, has purchased SDC Consulting (London), a firm that provides consulting services to healthcare organizations in the United Kingdom and Ireland. SDC reported 1998 revenues of about $1.5 million. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. FCG’s CEO, Luther Nussbaum, said that the purchase, "combined with our acquisitions of Greenhalgh & Co. and Pareto Consulting last year," gives FCG "undisputed leadership in the healthcare consulting market in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland." Since its founding in 1991, SDC has served more than 100 clients across the U.K.’s National Health Service and in the PFI sector.
• IMS Health (London) has formed an agreement with the Community Pharmacy Section of the International Pharmaceutical Federation to enhance the company’s collaborative role with pharmacists around the world. Federation Internationale Pharmaceutique (FIP, The Hague, the Netherlands) serves pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences worldwide. IMS Health, a leading provider of information solutions to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, will lend its support to pharmacist education programs developed by FIP CPS and become a sponsor of FIP CPS lectures and symposia at the FIP Congress, a global conference that attracts more than 3,000 participants annually. FIP is composed of 10 sections, which include Community Pharmacy, Hospital Pharmacy, Industrial Pharmacy, Academic Pharmacy, Administrative Pharmacy and Military Pharmacy, as well as sections covering Pharmacy Information, Medicinal Plants, Clinical Biology and Official Laboratories.
• M.D. On-Line (MDO; Bridgewater, NJ), a privately held developer of products and services for electronic health insurance claims processing, referral and eligibility transactions and electronic commerce, has formed a collaboration with AT&T to promote Internet access to national healthcare providers. MDO and AT&T Internet Services will jointly promote the distribution of the AT&T WorldNet business service to MDO’s customers. The service delivers Internet connectivity to healthcare providers and offers provider sites the ability to submit secure health insurance transactions either through existing MDO products using direct line access or via MD On-Line’s Internet products to be introduced in 1999. MDO processed more than 1.1 million healthcare transactions in 1998.
• Microtest (Phoenix) reported that it has signed an OEM licensing agreement with SunGard Healthcare’s (Rockville, MD) MACESS division, an operating business unit of SunGard Data Systems, which specializes in providing imaging-based operations and customer service software to health insurance companies. MACESS will market and distribute a customized version of Microtest’s DiscPort Executive CD and DVD-ROM networking software to complement its I-MAX software solution, which automates operations such as claims entry, routing and storage, enrollments, and correspondence within healthcare organizations. Initially, Macess will distribute the intraNetWare version of DiscPort Executive to its existing I-MAX customer base of Novell network users. DiscPort Executive is networking software that allows users to access CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs from anywhere on a network or over the Internet or an intranet using a standard web browser for managing, browsing and launching applications. MACESS provides a comprehensive imaging based solution called I-MAX designed exclusively for health insurance companies.
• Pangea Systems (Oakland, CA) said Biosource Technologies. (Vacaville, CA), has licensed its bioinformatics software. The agreement covers Pangea’s GeneWorld and GeneMill software applications and the Pathway computational tools, the primary parts of a comprehensive software solution offering automated, high-throughput analysis, project management software for DNA sequencing, and the elucidation of biochemical metabolic pathways. Biosource is a research-through-manufacturing enterprise providing technologies to improve the speed and productivity of life science product development.
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