Allscripts and NantHealth cross-invest for personalized medicine

Allscripts, a vendor of electronic health records (EHR), and NantHealth, an IT company that specializes in molecular diagnostics, have expanded their partnership through cross-investment and a new collaboration agreement.

As part of the deal, Allscripts has purchased a 10 percent stake in NantHealth at the cost of $200 million. Concurrently, the founder of NantHealth, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, has made a $100 million investment in Allscripts with hopes of expanding his company’s personalized medicine services.

NantHealth is heavily involved in personalized healthcare, particularly as it relates to cancer treatment. They provide genomic and protein-based molecular diagnostic testing used to help physicians develop care plans tailored to the specific biological makeup of a patient.

“Allscripts has the technology and scale to become a significant player in a once-in-a-generation shift to personalized medicine,” says Dr. Soon-Shiong. “Pursuing unique and innovative partnerships such as this, which can integrate our solutions across the full spectrum of precision care, furthers our mission of building a healthcare ecosystem to drive better outcomes with the highest quality and lowest cost.”

By being able to utilize more of Allscripts’ global network of physicians and hospitals, NantHealth hopes its personalized medicine programs will be applied routinely at the point of care and appear more frequently in clinical drug trials.

“Today’s healthcare providers are looking for innovative solutions that are integrated across the continuum of care,” says Robert L. Meyer, president and chief executive officer of Phoenix Children’s Hospital. “Allscripts and NantHealth offer a promising vision for how tomorrow’s solutions will provide healthcare professionals with a personalized, comprehensive view of the patient … [and] create precise protocols to drive down costs and improve patient outcomes throughout our healthcare system.”

In a press release, the two companies said they are working to create a “fully comprehensive and integrated platform” that will allow for better coordination of personalized treatment across a wide variety of provider settings, from small practices to major hospital care centers.

Due in part to the mutual investment, the partnership is expected to continue indefinitely.