Dive Brief:
- IBM announced Thursday it would buy medical imaging company Merge Healthcare for $1 billion.
- The acquisition will be combined with IBM's Watson Health analytics unit, giving the company the ability to tie together imaging and cloud-based storage and supercomputing.
- Merge stock closed Wednesday at $7.13, meaning IBM is paying a nearly 32 percent premium for the acquisition.
Dive Insight:
Reuters notes that the deal will give IBM access to 7,500 healthcare sites. Combine the imaging information with medical records and the power of supercomputing, and IBM will be able to offer researchers massive, powerful healthcare data analytics that could be used in a variety of ways.
IBM has been active in the healthcare IT sector in recent months; it's the third big acquisition since Watson Health launched in April.