IMS Health, a leading worldwide provider of information, technology and services dedicated to making healthcare perform better,  has acquired Sweden-based industry-leading life sciences advisory and analytics firm, Pygargus, to further advance its technology-enabled Real-World Evidence solutions and global RWE footprint.

The acquisition brings together IMS Health’s market-leading RWE capabilities with Pygargus’s proprietary technology for extracting and integrating patient-anonymous information from sources that include electronic medical records, health registries and claims databases. The combination extends IMS Health’s suite of global RWE solutions empowering healthcare stakeholders to efficiently link and analyze complex data sets for a complete picture of the patient experience.

With this acquisition, IMS Health adds to its deep outcomes research expertise and scalable RWE platform supporting a broad range of applications, from epidemiological studies and comparative effectiveness and safety research, to commercial analytics. Since 2005, Pygargus has worked closely with life sciences companies, payers, healthcare authorities and academia to integrate complex data sets from multiple sources in Northern Europe, leveraging best-in-breed analytics to enable a comprehensive view of treatment pathways and support customized real-world outcomes research.

“Life sciences organizations today recognize the transformative role of real-world insights in driving a deeper understanding of the end-to-end patient journey,” said Jon Resnick, vice president and general manager, RWE Solutions, IMS Health. “With this acquisition, we’re bringing together proven RWE expertise, scalable technology and new data sets and analytics to help healthcare decision makers identify, link and interpret real-world outcomes in near real time.”

As healthcare information becomes more connected locally, regionally and globally, IMS Health is empowering a growing set of clients worldwide to apply health informatics to improve quality, patient outcomes and better manage the total cost of care. The acquisition accelerates IMS Health’s capabilities in supporting reimbursement decisions, healthcare technology assessments and post-marketing surveillance for clients worldwide.

 “We are very excited to join IMS Health,” said Patrik Sobocki, CEO of Pygargus. “Proving the value of existing and newly introduced therapies is the ‘new normal’ within the European Union, and there is a growing demand for solutions that quantify the costs, risks and benefits of specific treatments in real-world settings. Together, our teams are uniquely poised to support clients with meaningful, evidence-based analyses that are critical to the advancement of healthcare.”

Pygargus, a leading independent Scandinavian life science advisory and analytics firm based in Stockholm, Sweden, specializes in real-world outcomes research, offering expertise in electronic medical records, registry data handling, data integration and scientific project management.