Making moves to bulk up its collection of high-tech pharmacy management tools is becoming a monthly thing for BD.
Just a few weeks after inking a billion-dollar deal to acquire Parata Systems and its automated pharmacy workflow hardware and software, the medtech giant is snapping up another pharmacy-focused tech maker.
The target this time is MedKeeper, a Colorado-based developer of cloud-based software programs to automatically verify drug compounding processes, track medication orders and inventory and consolidate a facility’s staff training, unit inspection and other documents in one place.
“Preparing the right dose for patients requires a combination of factors—including personnel, training and compliance. Pharmacy leaders require IV workflow management technology that is personalized to their needs and works within their environment,” said Mike Garrison, BD’s president of medication management solutions.
“Adding MedKeeper to our portfolio will enable us to offer our customers easy-to-use, customizable solutions that make meaningful and incremental progress in IV workflow management,” Garrison said, singling out “COVID-impacted labor shortages and changing regulatory requirements” as major factors pushing overworked pharmacies toward automated workflow management tools.
Though BD didn’t disclose its offering price for MedKeeper, the medtech giant said it expects the acquisition to be “immaterial to BD’s fiscal 2022 financial results.”
However, in an announcement (PDF) of its own, MedKeeper’s previous owner, Spanish pharmaceutical company Grifols, said it had agreed to sell the business to affiliates of BD for approximately $93 million.
That’s a steal compared to what Grifols originally paid for MedKeeper: The pharma shelled out a total of about $158 million across two tranches. The first came in 2018 and saw Grifols hand over $98 million in return for a 51% stake in the software developer. A couple years later, it finished the job, doling out $60.2 million for the remaining 49% of MedKeeper in late 2020.
MedKeeper will join Parata Systems under BD’s pharmacy automation umbrella. BD laid out its plans to buy out Parata in early June, with the acquisition expected to close sometime before next March, within the first half of BD’s 2023 fiscal year.
For a $1.525 billion all-cash sticker price, BD will take control of Parata’s hardware and software systems, which range from vending machine-like robots designed to dispense, cap and sort pills to software programs that can track the progress of barcoded canisters throughout a pharmacy.