Roche has announced the acquisition of Flatiron Health in a deal worth $1.9 billion.
On Feb. 16, the global pharmaceuticals conglomerate said the deal will “accelerate industry-wide development and delivery of breakthrough medicines for patients with cancer.”
In a statement announcing the purchase, Roche said that Flatiron Health will continue to operate as a separate legal entity, but the acquisition will bring the firms together to “improve the lives of cancer patients through the evolving field of healthcare data and analytics.”
New York City, US-based healthcare technology firm Flatiron Health develops oncology-specific electronic health record (EHR) systems. Flatiron is also a partner of hundreds of cancer clinics, six major research facilities, and therapeutic oncology companies. The company has developed an information exchange platform which allows “researchers and care providers to learn from the experience of every patient.”
Flatiron Health was founded by Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg in 2012. The pair says that “each patient’s story has the unique potential to teach us something new about the way cancer works, and help us find more effective treatments, faster.”
Turner and Weinberg hoped to bring together technology and healthcare when they founded the company and say this mission won’t be affected by the deal; instead, it will give “Flatiron an accelerated ability to achieve our mission while continuing to operate independently with access to greater resources.”
The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2018.
