IT system takeover is given the go ahead
Cegedim’s purchase of leading pharmacy IT systems supplier Enigma
Health from UniChem has been approved by the Office of Fair Trading (PDF 190K). Enigma Health markets pharmacy management and patient medication
records systems.
The deal takes Cegedim — a French company that markets NDC Health’s
pharmacy IT systems in the UK and health care IT systems throughout Europe — from
third to first place with a 51 per cent market share. Previously, Cegedim’s
NDC Health had 17 per cent of the market.
The OFT concluded that after the takeover NDC would still face significant
competition in the supply of pharmacy IT systems from AAH (28.3 per cent
market share), Systems Solutions (10.4 per cent) and Hadley Healthcare
(5.2 per cent). Another concern of the OFT arising from the takeover
was that Cegedim would gain a controlling position over anonymised prescription
data extracted from pharmacy management systems and sold to market data
companies, such as IMS and Taylor Nelson Sofres. This could have led
to the foreclosure of data contracts between the IT suppliers and the
data companies.
But the OFT concluded that existing contracts would remain in place for
a number of years. It took the view that it would not be rational for
Cegedim to force foreclosure because its loss of income from the data
companies would be greater than the profit it could make by using the
data on its own account.
According to an OFT report on the takeover, the most important function
of pharmacy IT systems is to check the validity and accuracy of reimbursement
claims from the NHS. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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