IMS Health Buys Belgian Firm Forcea

IMS Health has acquired Belgian-based business intelligence tech company Forcea, with the aim of enhancing its performance management capabilities for hospitals and life sciences clients. Terms were not disclosed.

Established in 2006, Forcea works with hospitals, life sciences companies and other industry stakeholders in Europe, offering a combination of strategic advisory services and analytics. The latter include data warehousing implementation, benchmarking and mobile solutions.

IMS says the deal brings together its own comprehensive information and technology services - in particular its cloud-based IMS One platform, which integrates its own data with that from clients and third-parties - with Forcea's hospital-based technology solutions, to drive more effective clinical and cost decisions.

Alistair Grenfell, IMS Health's President, North Europe, welcomes Forcea's 'deep technical expertise and hospital-based business intelligence capabilities', and comments: 'For life sciences organizations and providers, the challenge today is to connect and coordinate insights that make vast amounts of information more actionable and healthcare systems more cost efficient - all while improving patient care.'

Frank Swaelens, co-founder and Managing Partner at Forcea, says the combined firms will address a 'growing demand within the European Union for solutions that enable more efficient use of healthcare resources and establish performance benchmarks.'

IMS Health, which has around 10,000 employees, is online at www.imshealth.com , while Forcea can be found at www.forcea.be .