Roche has entered a definitive agreement to acquire all shares of Flatiron Health, a US-based healthcare technology and services firm, for a total consideration of $1.9bn. The deal expands Roche’s current 12.6% equity stake in the firm and is expected to aid in the development and delivery of new innovative medicines for cancer patients.

Flatiron Health carries expertise in oncology-specific, electronic health record (EHR) software and generation of real-world evidence for cancer research. The firm worked together with multiple community oncology practices and academic medical centres in the country to develop a range of software products that help in rolling out the real-world evidence at the point of care.

Roche Pharmaceuticals CEO Daniel O’Day said: “This is an important step in our personalised healthcare strategy for Roche, as we believe that regulatory-grade real-world evidence is a key ingredient to accelerate the development of, and access to, new cancer treatments. This is an important step in our personalised healthcare strategy for Roche. As a leading technology company in oncology, Flatiron Health is best positioned to provide the technology and data analytics infrastructure needed not only for Roche, but for oncology research and development efforts across the entire industry.”

Roche plans to preserve Flatiron’s existing business model, partnerships network, overall objectives, sales and marketing, provider-facing and life science business activities. Flatiron expects to continue offering its services to both the existing and future partners.

Flatiron Health co-founder and CEO Nat Turner said: “This important milestone will allow us to increase our investments in our provider-facing technology and services platform, as well as our evidence-generation platform, which will remain available to the entire healthcare industry.”

Planned to conclude in the first half of this year, the deal is subject to customary closing conditions.