Allscripts, the Chicago-based electronic health record (EHR) vendor, announced it is purchasing a 10 percent equity stake in NantHealth, a Culver City, Calif.-based provider of clinical decision technology.
The 10 percent equity stake cost Allscripts $200 million in cash. In return, NantHealth invested $100 million investment into Allscripts.
The two companies have partnered before. In March, they announced a precision medicine initiative to introduce clinical decision support software that uses complex genomic and proteomic analysis, and is integrated into the Allscripts EHR system. NantHealth specializes in genomic and protein-based molecular diagnostics testing, using a Genomic Proteomic Sequencing (GPS Cancer) diagnostic test. The latest investment will build off the original initiative.
The companies have specific goals in mind, including the creation of a cross clinical-GPS Cancer sequencing knowledge ontology and industry standard and development of GPS Cancer sequencing invitations to connect with Allscripts’ technology. They also aim to incorporate other elements of NantHealth’s offerings into the EHR.
In its short existence, NantHealth, headed up by Patrick Soon-Shion, M.D., has received several strategic investments, on top of this one. In 2014, BlackBerry invested in the company and bought a minority stake as well.
"Under the leadership of Dr. Soon-Shiong, NantHealth is pioneering extraordinarily innovative, personalized healthcare solutions that will empower more efficient and effective clinical decisions. We're confident that our joint efforts will help Allscripts lead the way in our vision of delivering open, integrated and precision-based medical solutions to physicians and patients,” Paul Black, CEO of Allscripts, said in a statement.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Soon-Shiong plans to take the company public by the end of the year.
