IBM Watson Health Sells Data Assets

IBM Watson Health has completed the sale of its healthcare data and analytics assets to investment firm Francisco Partners. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Under Francisco's ownership, the new standalone company will be called Merative and will be headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Merative's products will be organized into six product families: Health Insights; MarketScan and Micromedex (previously part of Truven Health Analytics); Clinical Development; Social Program Management and Phytel; and Merge Imaging solutions.

The Merative business will be led by Gerry McCarthy (pictured), who most recently served as CEO of eSolutions, a Francisco Partners portfolio company, before which he was the President of TransUnion Healthcare and an executive at McKesson; and the current management team will continue in similar roles in the new standalone company. Investment from Francisco Partners itself and from equity firms True Wind Capital and Sixth Street will give Merative resources and opportunities for acquisitions, partnerships and growth.

Ezra Perlman and Justin Chen of Francisco Partners, comment: 'Francisco Partners is excited about the opportunity to partner with the team and employees at Merative to help them achieve their mission, bringing technology and expertise to clients across healthcare through data and analytics solutions. We appreciate IBM's work in developing this business, and our ownership will help Merative drive crucial focus in executing on organic and inorganic growth strategies'. Initial agreement on the deal was announced in January.

Francisco Partners was previously the owner of digital analytics pioneer Webtrends, which it acquired as long ago as 2005.

Web site: www.merative.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.