Acquisitions & Agreements
April 16, 1999
Acquisitions & Agreements
• Acxiom (Conway, AK) said it has acquired Horizon Systems (Stamford, CT) and will merge it with its healthcare business unit, Acxiom Health (Skokie, IL). Acxiom Health provides data management services, database marketing solutions and direct marketing services to the pharmaceutical and health care industries. Horizon Systems is a provider of information management and decision-support systems, business consulting and outsourcing services to pharmaceutical sales organizations. The acquisition was made with a combination of cash and stock, and the agreement contains earnout provisions for Horizon based on revenue and profit goals. With the addition, Acxiom said it will be "one of the first companies to provide pharmaceutical manufacturers with the ability to seamlessly integrate sales and marketing efforts and synchronize professional and consumer marketing programs," it said in a statement. Paul Zaffaroni, leader of the Acxiom Services Division, said that the purchase of Horizon Systems "greatly enhances our capabilities in the pharmaceutical market, an important area targeted for growth by Acxiom."
• AutoMed Technologies (Buffalo Grove, IL), a developer of automated medication delivery systems, has acquired certain assets of Baxter Healthcare’s Productivity Systems business (Round Lake, IL). The acquired operations will be consolidated with AutoMed in a new facility, according to Duane Chudy, president of AutoMed. Chudy said the acquisition allows his company to provide "the broadest range of pharmacy automation solutions in the industry." It targets hospital inpatient and outpatient, long-term care, retail and mail order operations. The recently introduced AutoMed VersaFill+ system is a custom-configured system for high-volume institutional pharmacies that enables automatic processing and fulfillment for every kind of prescription, including oral solid and liquid medications, topical prescriptions and various medical supplies. Another system, CustomPak, packages and dispenses vitamins for the nutritional supplement market.
• DxCG (Waltham, MA), distributor of Diagnostic Cost Group risk adjustment software, has signed a three-year license and reseller agreement with VIPS Healthcare (Towson, MD), a producer of information solutions. VIPS will embed DxCG’s second-generation risk adjustment product into Population Profiler, an analytical application for managed care organizations. That product is a component of MCSource, VIPS’ data warehouse and decision support system.
• Healtheon (Santa Clara, CA) and InsWeb, an Internet insurance marketplace, have formed an alliance to provide customers with tools for managing their health insurance and healthcare needs, and performing e-commerce health-related transactions. Healtheon visitors can use InsWeb to obtain quotes from the company’s health insurance providers in 42 states. InsWeb users will, in turn, have access to Healtheon's consumer transaction portal, including advanced medical databases, which provides authoritative healthcare information. From Healtheon’s health portal, consumers can link to InsWeb’s health insurance marketplace to evaluate competing health insurance coverage, research and review features and benefits, and obtain price quotes online from participating carriers, including Mutual of Omaha, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of NJ and Florida, The Hartford and United Security Life. InsWeb in turn will feature a link to Healtheon’s consumer portal. Healtheon also this week announced new agreements with AT&T and @Work to provide Internet connectivity services for the healthcare industry. Using AT&T WorldNet Service and @Work, Healtheon will be able to connect physician offices and other providers with many hospitals, payers, physician groups and consumers. Users will be able to submit and monitor insurance claims, check patient eligibility, and order laboratory and diagnostic tests. The service will also provide access to Healtheon’s large database of medical reference materials via desktop. @Work is a unit of Internet provider @Home Network (Redwood City, CA).
• INC Research (INC; San Diego) and Phase Forward (Waltham, MA) have executed a joint marketing agreement that will promote both INC’s clinical drug development services and Phase Forward’s national marketing strategy. INC will integrate Phase Forward’s InForm product into its existing electronic systems for linking the company's exclusive network of investigator sites. InForm is a web-based solution tying all members of a clinical research team into a single environment for data collection, monitoring, cleaning, problem communication and resolution. InForm will serve as the information pipeline for transmitting CRF data directly into INC’s validated Oracle Clinical data management system. INC also will apply Phase Forward’s technology to other research projects the company manages outside its exclusive physician network.
• InterTech Information Management (Atlanta) and Staffware (Bedford, MA) have formed a partnership to integrate Staffware Workflow with InterTech’s DocuPACT document management solution. Staffware Workflow will be a core component of the DocuPACT system, enabling web deployment of client/server configurations. The combination will feature object-to-object level interfacing; graphical representation of document routing processes; use of Staffware Workflow Events to initiate DocuPACT functions; use of DocuPACT System Events to initiate Staffware functions. InterTech also has released DocuPACT 4.0, a new version of its document management solution. It features a standards-based tool set allowing DocuPACT assimilation into a variety of business processes.
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