Deals, Investments                                                                                                                                    

There were 610 deals representing a total reported transaction value of $38.7 billion during the second quarter of 2019 within the market for healthcare service businesses that support the life sciences industry. There were several multi-billion transactions, including $5.7 billion for a software business that analyzes clinical trials and more than $4 billion for Press Ganey, the PE-owned business that helps hospitals measure patient satisfaction.  

It was a quarter that registered deals in a variety of related sub-sectors. Private equity investors demonstrated their renewed interest in patient point of care and advertising networks, a space that had been relatively quiet. And there were multiple investments in marketing agencies, communications firms, and healthcare content for providers and patients both by private equity firms, like KKR, and active strategic investors Huntsworth and UDG Healthcare.  

$11.4B for cancer biotech firm; a very active sub-sector

Pfizer said that it will spend $11.4 billion in cash to purchase Array BioPharma, a Boulder, Colo.-based biotech known not only for developing its own medicines but as being a top choice among biotechnology firms that need to synthesize new drugs.

• Pfizer said it will keep Array open as a new research site for the company.  Array sells a combination of two drugs, Braftovi and Mektovi, that were approved last June to treat metastatic melanoma.
• Array has also played a background role in inventing medicines that are principally thought of as belonging to other companies.

More on the deals in cancer treatment from Axios.

$5.7B deal for clinical trial software business

French technology company Dassault Systemes (DASTY) agreed to buy Medidata Solutions(MDSO), a software firm that analyzes clinical trials, for $5.7 billion to bolster its offerings to the pharmaceutical industry.

• The record deal will allow Dassault to offer drugmakers a complete set of services and ride a shift toward personalized medicine, in which research and tools are tailored to individual patient profiles, generating the need to analyze vast amounts of data.​​​​​​
• Health is becoming a crucial market for Dassault, which also creates 3D design software, said Pascal Daloz, the company’s chief financial officer. Medidata offers clients wearable sensors that help track patients’ health in real life and biomarker analysis to select which ones may best respond to drugs. It estimates that 13 of the top 15 medicines sold last year relied on its technology.

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