Cerner snaps up Kantar Health in $375 million deal
Kantar has announced the sale of its health business, as the firm continues to reorganise its properties in the wake of its 2019 purchase by Bain Capital. Cerner hopes that Kantar Health will enable it to provide insights and real-world data to pharmaceutical clients in a complex period of change.
Kantar Group is a British professional services firm which was founded in 1992. It has more than 30,000 employees working in 100 countries, and has been majority owned by Bain Capital since 2019. The private equity giant obtained the London headquartered company after Kantar had unified all its legacy brands, such as Kantar TNS, Kantar Millward Brown, Kantar Media and Kantar Consulting.
Since then, Kantar has been looking to restructure and expand the firm’s capacity. While this initially involved the launch of an acquisition drive, Kantar has also looked to streamline its operations from divesting in properties that it does not feel are a priority. Most recently this has seen the firm sell its global health division off in an all-cash transaction.
Cerner, a global healthcare technology company with a focus on using data for wide-reaching applications in life sciences, pharmaceuticals and healthcare at large, has purchased the practice for $375 million. The proposed transaction is anticipated to complete during the first half of 2021 subject to completion of the relevant shareholder, legal and regulatory processes, and subject to the outcome of employee information and employee representatives’ consultation processes where necessary.
Commenting on the announcement Kantar’s Deputy CEO and CFO Ian Griffiths said, “The people, products and services of Kantar’s Health division are admired across the industry. With its leadership in ‘real world evidence’ and therapeutic expertise, especially in oncology and rare diseases, the growth opportunities of the division will be best realised as part of a healthcare specialist.”
As part of Cerner, Kantar’s health division will boost the firm’s data analytics strategy and capabilities, providing an increased impact on health outcomes for patients around the world. This is expected to enable a two-sided collaboration between healthcare providers and the pharmaceutical industry, with researchers generating insights and use differentiated real-world data assets and expertise to address the most complex clinical research questions.
Donald Trigg, President of Cerner, stated, “Kantar Health has incredible health economics and medical affairs expertise, differentiated real-world data assets and strong relationships with the world’s leading life science companies. It offers us an amazing opportunity to drive cross-industry collaboration that can change health outcomes around the world.”
Harris Williams acted as exclusive financial advisor to Kantar Health, while Weil, Gotshal & Manges acted as legal advisor and EY acted as accounting, tax, operational, technology and separation advisors. Latham & Watkins meanwhile acted as legal advisor to Cerner, with EY providing financial, tax and HR due diligence, and its strategy wing EY-Parthenon acting as strategic, commercial and operational advisors.