Oracle buys pharma software vendor for $685m
- Reduce text size Decrease text size
- Increase text size Increase text size
- Print article Print
- Jump to comments Comment
- Share this article Share
- Email article to a friend Email
Software vendor increases industry-specific products stable with Phase Forward takeover, stepping up vertical challenge to SAP
Enterprise application and database business Oracle has agreed to acquire healthcare software provider Phase Forward for approximately $685 million.
Phase Forward provides software-as-a-service platforms for managing clinical developments and safety processes for the purposes of clinical trials, regulatory submission and post-approval monitoring. According to Oracle, the addition of Phase Forward's IT assets to its existing Oracle Health Sciences division will allow healthcare professionals and patients to more effectively and securely use data.
“The life sciences and healthcare industries are converging as they seek to control costs while accelerating patient-centered innovation,” said Neil de Crescenzo, senior vice president, Oracle Health Sciences.
The acquisition is part of Oracle's plan to offer industry-specific solutions across most verticals, which the company believes could be a differentiator for customers between it and the larger enterprise applications business of rival SAP. "We have industry-specific applications for a variety of industries," Oracle CEO Larry Ellison told analysts in a conference call last month. "So our strategy is to have much better industry focus than SAP in terms of functionality, and a much more modern technology underlying all of that functionality."
"There are a bunch of industries where we're very, very strong and we have applications that SAP simply does not have," he added. "One of our strategies was to beat SAP in CRM – which we do – and then beat SAP in industry-specific vertical applications."
