Acquisitions & Agreements
Acquisitions & Agreements
• Acxiom (Conway, AK) has acquired Horizon Systems (Stamford, CT) and will merge it with its health care business unit, Acxiom Health. The latter company provides marketing services to the pharmaceutical and health care industries. Horizon provides information management solutions, decision support systems, and outsourcing services to pharmaceutical sales organizations. Revenues last year were $9.1 million.
• America Online (Dulles, VA) and HealthQuick.com (McLean, VA), a discount vitamin and health product consumer site, have formed an alliance to expand the range of health-related products available on AOL. Under the agreement, AOL will receive guaranteed minimum payments from HealthQuick totaling $10 million. In return, HealthQuick will become the premier provider of vitamins in the AOL Health Channel, and will also have a presence on CompuServe, AOL.COM, and AOL’s Digital City.
• Automed Technologies (Buffalo Grove, IL) has finalized the acquisition of productivity systems assets of Baxter Healthcare (Round Lake, IL). The acquired portion of Baxter’s productivity systems operations will be consolidated with Automed in a new facility to be unveiled soon. Automed has products in the automated medical delivery systems, including dispensing, packaging, and labeling.
• Express Scripts (St. Louis) has completed the acquisition of Diversified Pharmaceutical Services (Edina, MN) assets from SmithKline Beecham. The acquisition makes Express Scripts the third-largest pharmacy benefit manager in the U.S., with nearly $10 billion in drug spending. Express Scripts paid SmithKline $700 million in cash. The acquisition was financed with a $1.1 billion senior credit facility led by Credit Suisse First Boston and Bankers Trust Company, and a $150 million bridge loan.
• Greentree.com (San Francisco) has formed an alliance with IDEA (San Diego), an educational organization for health and fitness professionals. Greentree will develop promotion and incentive programs to help personal trainers and their clients buy natural health products and get information on health and supplementation issues.
• Infoseek (Sunnyvale, CA) has signed a three-year agreement with drkoop.com, an Internet site that offers health information and services. The agreement, which Infoseek says has a revenue potential of $57 million, is contingent on certain financing efforts by drkoop. Infoseek is the home of the Go Network, an Internet-based site that includes entertainment, news, information, and products.
• The Massachusetts Health Data Consortium (Waltham, MA) has named Merck-Medco Managed Care as an information technology partner in the consortium’s Affiliated Health Information Networks of New England project. The network project was created in 1995 to spur regional cooperation on health data initiatives. The 25 participants include 12 health plans, nine hospital systems and four other provider networks with combined information technology budgets totaling $1 billion. The goal is to create a virtual health data network that allows each organization to retain ownership of the data while promoting secure data exchange.
• Medical Industries of America (Boynton Beach, FL) has entered into a formal letter of intent to merge with CyberCare (Atlanta) The transaction is a non-cash stock exchange valued at $10 million, and is subject to due diligence and board approval. Once the merger is completed, the companies are expected to change their names to a new company, and will focus on clinical medicine, technology development and integration, and information management.
• The Merallis Co. (Rocky Hill, CT) has signed a multi-year agreement with Quest Diagnostics (Teterboro, NJ) to establish a private-label electronic communications and information link to support regional networks of laboratory service providers. Under the agreement, Merallis will provide customized electronic data interchange services using its network and QuickSilver ECS software. Merallis also will furnish the QuestNet laboratory network management service with flexible front end communications and transaction processing capabilities.
• SpeechWorks International (Boston) has developed a partnership with the Medical Information Systems Unit at Boston University Medical Center (also Boston) to develop the first speech-activated, remote health care assessment service. The automated system will be tested in the Boston area this spring by allowing individuals to call in and be evaluated by simply speaking naturally over the phone. The evaluation is for risky drinking behavior, and if individuals are engaging in such behavior, the system automatically provides referrals to agencies where they can obtain help. Speechworks focuses on developing speech-activated services using technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA).
• The TriZetto Group (Newport Beach, CA) has acquired the Technology & Outsourcing division of Management & Technology (Louisville). The purchase includes products and services, outsourced access to the Medical Manager Practice Management System, central billing services, patient messaging system and MTS' proprietary Intranet technology. Terms of the agreement were not revealed. The TriZetto Group offers outsourcing and consulting IT services to provider-based organizations and managed care plans. It is the developer of the Enterprise Manager practice management solution and offers outsourcing and consulting IT services.
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