Business
Per-Se Technologies and Wolters Kluwer acquire NDCHealth
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Sept. 19, 2005
Per-Se Technologies and Wolters Kluwer NV on Aug. 29 agreed to acquire NDCHealth Corp., an Atlanta-based company that sells physician practice management software and health care transaction processing services, in separate transactions valued at more than $1 billion.
Under the proposed agreement, which is expected to close within three to six months, Per-Se Technologies, Alpharetta, Ga., will acquire the physician, hospital and retail pharmacy operations of NDCHealth for $665 million in cash and stock, including the assumption of $270 million in debt.
The transaction will enable Per-Se Technologies to expand its physician and hospital client base and enter the retail pharmacy market. Per-Se Technologies, which sells software and services to 19,000 hospital-affiliated physicians and 2,000 hospitals, will gain an additional 100,000 office-based physicians, 1,800 hospitals and 50,000 retail pharmacies as clients.
Separately, Netherlands-based Wolters Kluwer, a Dutch publisher of medical and legal journals, will acquire the NDCHealth unit that sells pharmaceutical market research to drug companies for $382 million in cash.
NDC Health, which is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for alleged accounting improprieties, had put itself up for sale earlier this year.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/09/19/bibf0919.htm.
