Enterprise IT vendor IBM Watson Health announced its $2.6 billion deal to acquire Truven Health Analytics, a provider of healthcare data, analytics and insights.
The US-based technology giant will benefit from Truven’s more than 8,500 clients, including U.S. federal and state government agencies, employers, health plans, hospitals, clinicians and life sciences companies.
Truven Health Analytics is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with offices in Denver, Chicago, Raleigh-Durham, and a center in India.
IBM’s health cloud business will have one of the world’s largest collections of health-related data, representing an aggregate of approximately 300 million patient lives acquired from three companies. IBM plans to integrate Truven’s cloud-based data set spanning hundreds of different types of cost, claims, quality and outcomes information with its existing data sets.
Through the Watson Health Cloud, healthcare organizations will be able to take previously disparate data sets, including vast amounts of unstructured data, and combine them together to create unique insights that help inform a broad range of health decisions.
Truven Health Analytics is IBM’s fourth major health-data related acquisition since launching the Watson Health unit in April 2015. Earlier, IBM acquired Phytel (population health), Explorys (cloud-based healthcare intelligence) and Merge Healthcare (medical imaging).
Upon close, IBM will have invested more than $4 billion to acquire and build cognitive healthcare capabilities intended to help professionals improve health outcomes, control costs, and advance value-based care solutions.
The acquisition of Truven will increase Watson Health’s talent to more than 5,000 employees, including hundreds of clinicians, epidemiologists, statisticians, healthcare administrators, policy experts and healthcare consultants.
Deborah DiSanzo, general manager for IBM Watson Health, said: “Together, we’re well positioned to scale globally and to build first-in-class offerings designed to help our clients apply cognitive insights in a value-based care environment.”
Mike Boswood, president and CEO, Truven Health Analytics, said: “The deal will help catapult the industry forward to transform healthcare and to save and improve lives.”
IBM Watson Health has partners and clients, including Apple, Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson, Novo Nordisk, and CVS Health.
