Elekta to acquire oncology informatics supplier CMS
16 January 2008 Elekta AB (STO:EKTAb) has announced it is in
negotiations to acquire US oncology informatics company CMS for US$75m. The
negotiations are expected to be finalized by mid February 2008 and closing
is estimated to take place by mid March 2008. CMS has been a pioneer in
the development and delivery of radiation treatment planning (RTP) systems
for over 25 years and continues to be a leader in treatment planning and
oncology workflow management. Successful completion of the acquisition
process would benefit Elekta by adding a suite of advanced RTP systems, a
large and growing installed base of 1,500 sites in clinical operation
throughout the world, and a well-established RTP operational infrastructure
to Elekta’s current oncology business.
CMS’s worldwide sales and support infrastructure and large, experienced
engineering organization have the potential to accelerate Elekta’s ability
to develop, implement, and support new, sophisticated radiation planning,
delivery, and management solutions worldwide. CMS is also the market
leader in treatment planning for proton therapy with eight installations in
clinical use. Integrating these solutions with the Mosaiq information
management system would reinforce Elekta’s leadership in software systems
for proton therapy facilities and strengthen the collaboration between
Elekta and its current partners in this area. “The products and market
position of CMS are highly complementary to Elekta’s corporate structure,
technology portfolio, and R&D roadmap. Both Elekta’s and CMS customers will
benefit from our combined strength in product development and support. With
CMS in the Elekta Group, we will also gain relationships with a large number
of customers who do not use Elekta’s products today,” explains Tomas
Puusepp, President & CEO of Elekta. “Elekta and CMS share a common belief in
open systems, and a vision that radiation treatment planning is a critical
piece of the technology required for emerging radiation therapy treatment
capabilities such as VMAT and adaptive therapy. Together, CMS and Elekta can
offer and further develop solutions that optimize clinical workflow while
also providing well-defined interfaces that allow clinicians to choose
systems that best fit their specific needs.” New trends in radiation
therapy planning “The radiation therapy discipline continues to
advance and radiation therapy planning, along with treatment delivery and
management technology, enables clinicians to develop and deliver regimens
that hopefully will result in improved treatment outcomes”, explains James
P. Hoey, EVP Product Creation at Elekta and CEO of IMPAC Medical Systems, an
Elekta company. “Elekta recognizes that treatment planning is rapidly
evolving from an event that typically occurred in an isolated area one or
two times during the therapy process to becoming a more iterative process
that evolves throughout the course of therapy with various steps taking
place in different areas of the department. Our aggressive development of
Mosaiq RTP as the world’s first distributed toolset for advanced radiation
therapy is targeted to meet this growing demand. CMS, with several leading
solutions already in clinical use, and a strong pipeline of advanced
functionality in development, could significantly contribute to our Mosaiq
RTP strategy going forward. CMS’s large, highly competent product creation
and support organizations would enable us to accelerate our development and
bring these solutions to our customers more quickly and effectively.”
“At CMS, we are excited about the opportunity of joining the Elekta Group
and are fully committed to the timely completion of all necessary steps in
the transaction,” said Andrew Cowen, President and CEO of CMS. |