Roche acquires Flatiron Health in move to advance personalised healthcare strategy

Roche has revealed it will acquire healthcare technology and services company, Flatiron Health, in an agreement that will see the companies leverage their respective expertise to advance industry-wide development and delivery of oncology medicines.

“This is an important step in our personalised healthcare strategy for Roche, as we believe that regulatory-grade real-world evidence is a key ingredient to accelerate the development of, and access to, new cancer treatments,” explained Daniel O’Day, CEO Roche Pharmaceuticals. “As a leading technology company in oncology, Flatiron Health is best positioned to provide the technology and data analytics infrastructure needed not only for Roche, but for oncology research and development efforts across the entire industry. A key principle of this is to preserve Flatiron’s autonomy and their ability to continue providing their services to all existing and future partners.”

“Roche has been a tremendous partner to us over the past two years and shares our vision for building a learning healthcare platform in oncology ultimately designed to improve the lives of cancer patients,” added Nat Turner, Flatiron Health co-founder and CEO. “This important milestone will allow us to increase our investments in our provider-facing technology and services platform, as well as our evidence-generation platform, which will remain available to the entire healthcare industry.”

The terms of the definitive agreement will see Roche make a payment of $1.9 billion to Flatiron Health on a fully diluted basis, subject to certain adjustments. The closing of this transaction is subject to the customary conditions and both companies anticipate that once closed, Flatiron Health will continue its current business model, network of partnerships and overall objectives.

This transaction is expected to close in the first half of the year (2018).