IBM Watson Health to Buy Truven Health Analytics

The newly formed IBM (Armonk, NY, USA) Watson health analytics unit has agreed to acquire Truven Health Analytics (Ann Arbor, MI, USA) in a bid to expand its core focus of cloud-based healthcare data and analytics.

IBM will integrate Truven's cloud-based data set with its existing ones, spanning hundreds of cost, claims, quality, and outcomes information type sets. Truven will add more than 8,500 clients to the IBM Watson Health portfolio, including US federal and state government agencies, employers, health plans, hospitals, clinicians and life sciences companies. It will then house one of the world's largest and most diverse repositories of health-related data, representing an aggregate of approximately 300 million patient lives.

Upon completion of the acquisition, valued at USD 2.6 billion, Watson Health's global talent footprint will be bolstered by more than 5,000 employees, including hundreds of clinicians, epidemiologists, statisticians, administrators, policy experts, and healthcare consultants who will join the IBM business unit. The ultimate goal of the company is to create a massive learning-driven entity to advance outcomes, control costs, and improve upon value-based healthcare.

“With this acquisition, IBM will be the world's leading health data, analytics, and insights company, and the only one that can deliver the unique cognitive capabilities of the Watson platform,” said Deborah DiSanzo, general manager of IBM Watson Health. “Truven will complement Watson Health's broad-based team, capabilities and offerings. 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.”

“The Truven Health Analytics team is eager to meld our capabilities and expertise with the Watson Health portfolio,” said Mike Boswood, president and CEO of Truven Health Analytics. “This will help catapult the industry forward to transform healthcare and to save and improve lives.”

Truven Health Analytics is IBM's fourth major health-related acquisition since launching its Watson Health unit in April 2015, following Phytel, which specializes in population health, Explorys, a cloud-based healthcare intelligence company, and medical image management company Merge Healthcare. During that time, IBM Watson Health also has quickly compiled a wideroster of partners and clients, including Apple, Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Novo Nordisk, and CVS Health.

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