5:07 PM CDT Wednesday

Cerner Corp. intends to acquire Galt Associates Inc., a provider of drug safety and clinical data management products and services, the parties announced Wednesday.

The acquisition is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2006 and should not have a material impact on Cerner's 2006 financial results, Cerner reported. Financial details of the transaction have not yet been disclosed.

Cerner (Nasdaq: CERN), a North Kansas City-based health care information technology vendor, said the acquisition would augment Cerner's LifeSciences portfolio by adding services that use medical event data to monitor and manage the safety and efficacy of various therapies.

Based in Sterling, Va., Galt Associates serves biotechnology, medical device and pharmaceutical firms, as well as research organizations worldwide. It has about 40 employees and posted 2005 revenue of $9.4 million.

"Cerner is dedicated to helping the health care industry dramatically reduce the delay between a drug's discovery and its safe delivery to patients," Paul Gorup, senior vice president of Cerner Knowledge and Discovery, said in a release. "The acquisition of Galt strengthens our ability to provide pharmaceutical companies with evidence-based surveillance of their drug's performance throughout its life cycle."

Cerner's LifeSciences division serves the growing market need for software, data and services to help drug development companies bring safe products to market. Cerner's Health Facts service, a data warehouse of more than 35 million clinical encounters, aggregates confidential data to help draw meaningful relationships between pharmaceutical therapies and resulting clinical outcomes.

Galt's services take this data one step further, helping clients code, exchange and analyze adverse medical event data to more effectively comply with regulations. In addition to monitoring the safety of existing products, Galt works with clients to improve the development process for new products and measure the relative safety and efficacy profiles of competing products.

"Cerner and Galt have a common vision to improve the safety of patients by enabling the sharing of data and technologies across the medical and research communities," Galt CEO Renee Lewis said in the release. "The integration of these two companies will ensure that our collective clients receive the most comprehensive solution to improve safety and reduce risk throughout the entire pharmaceutical development, commercialization and administration process."

Source: Kansas City Business Journal