March 2, 2016 — IBM Watson Health announced plans Feb. 18 to acquire Truven Health Analytics, a leading provider of cloud-based healthcare data, analytics and insights, for $2.6 billion. Truven will bring more than 8,500 clients, including U.S. federal and state government agencies, employers, health plans, hospitals, clinicians and life sciences companies, to the IBM Watson Health portfolio.
Upon completion of the acquisition, IBM’s health cloud will house one of the world’s largest and most diverse collections of health-related data, representing an aggregate of approximately 300 million patient lives acquired from three companies. IBM plans to integrate Truven’s extensive cloud-based dataset spanning hundreds of different types of cost, claims, quality and outcomes information with its existing datasets.
Through the Watson Health Cloud, healthcare organizations will be able to take previously disparate datasets, 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 represents IBM’s fourth major health-data related acquisition since launching the Watson Health unit in April 2015. Upon close, IBM will have invested more than $4 billion to acquire and build an array of cognitive healthcare capabilities intended to help professionals improve health outcomes, control costs and advance value-based care solutions.
Upon close, the acquisition of Truven will bolster Watson Health’s global talent footprint to more than 5,000 employees, including hundreds of clinicians, epidemiologists, statisticians, healthcare administrators, policy experts and healthcare consultants who will join the IBM business unit. Truven’s cloud-based technology, methodologies and health claims data will be integrated into the Watson Health Cloud over time.
The deal is projected to close later this year, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions and applicable regulatory reviews.
For more information: www.ibm.com/watsonhealth, www.truvenhealth.com