by
John R. Fischer, Senior Reporter | June 06, 2022
Oracle has acquired Cerner for $28.3 billion.
Oracle Corporation has acquired EHR vendor Cerner for $28.3 billion.
With clearance secured from the European Commission, the company wrapped up the sale at midnight on June 6, paying $95 a share in an all-cash deal. It is its largest acquisition to date and provides it with access to Cerner’s EHR systems, as well as a stake in the provider- and patient-facing clinical systems market.
Oracle plans to modernize Cerner’s systems with its Autonomous Database, APEX low-code development tools and voice-enabled user interface, and move them into its Gen2 Cloud platform. This will help providers with treatment decisions and reduce IT infrastructure costs, said Mike Sicilia, executive vice president of industries at Oracle, in a statement. "This can be done very quickly because Cerner's largest business and most important clinical system already runs on the Oracle Database. We also will make Cerner's systems much easier to learn and use by making hands-free voice technology the primary interface to Cerner's clinical systems."
Systems running on the Gen2 Cloud are available 24/7 and constantly monitoring their environments to avoid unplanned downtime. Only authorized personnel can access data on them.
The deal was initially
announced in December. At the time, David Feinberg, chief executive officer and president of Cerner, said joining Oracle would provide the company with the opportunity “to accelerate our work modernizing electronic health records, improving the caregiver experience, and enabling more connected, high-quality and efficient patient care.”
Oracle already provides solutions for several industries and will use Cerner as its anchor asset to expand into healthcare. The sale will be substantially accretive to its earnings on a non-GAAP basis in fiscal year 2023, says Safra Catz, Oracle’s chief executive officer. "Healthcare is the world's largest and most important vertical market — $3.8 trillion last year in the United States alone. We expect Cerner to be a huge growth engine for years to come."
The transaction is subject to certain closing conditions.
