French industrial design software developer Dassault Systemes SE announced a deal to acquire Medidata Solutions Inc. for $5.7 billion. The purchase signals the French company’s bid to push beyond its software development roots into data analytics and business analysis.
Medidata software is used to analyze drug trial for some of the biggest global pharmaceutical companies like Sanofi, Pfizer, and Astra Zeneca.
Marie Mawad and Geraldine Amiel filed this report published in Bloomberg:
Medidata offers clients wearable sensors that help track patient health and biomarker analysis to select which patients may best respond to certain drugs. It estimates that 13 of the top 15 medicines sold last year relied on its technology, as the healthcare industry shifts towards personalized medicine and the targeting of individual patient profiles.
President Donald Trump’s protectionist trade agenda hasn’t reduced the appetite of European companies for U.S. takeovers. In fact their appeal has been growing, potentially turning the tables after years in which Europe was mostly a target for U.S. acquirers.
French advertising group Publicis Groupe SA announced its biggest ever takeover in April, a $4.4 billion deal for U.S.-based Alliance Data Systems Corp.’s digital marketing unit Epsilon.
The Medidata deal is expected to close in the final quarter of 2019 and start boosting earnings as early as 2020, the companies said in a statement. Dassault Systemes will finance it with a 1 billion-euro loan, a 3 billion-euro bridge-to-loan facility and available cash. It’s the first time the French company has resorted to external funding, (Dassault CFO Pascal) Daloz said.
