Oracle-Cerner Tender Offer Deadline Extended

Oracle sees opportunity in adding cloud, artificial intelligence, machine learning and other technologies to Cerner’s offerings. The tender offer now expires in March.

Oracle has extended its tender offer for health care giant Cerner from this Tuesday to March 16.

Cerner investors now have an extra month to accept Oracle’s all-cash tender offer of $95 a share, according to an Oracle statement. The deal still needs to pass federal antitrust scrutiny.

[RELATED: Oracle Bets On Health Care With $28B Cerner Acquisition Plans]

The $28.3 billion deal, Oracle’s largest ever, is meant to give the Austin, Texas-based vendor a leg-up in the health tech space.

Oracle wants to invest in “easier-to-use digital tools that enable access to information” with a hands-free voice interface to secure cloud applications, according to a company statement Monday. This interface should lower administrative workload, lower health care costs and improve patient privacy and health outcomes, the company previously announced.

CRN has reached out to Oracle and Kansas City, Mo.-based Cerner for comment.

Oracle sees opportunity in adding cloud, artificial intelligence, machine learning and other technologies to Cerner’s offerings. The goal is zero unplanned downtime for Cerner customers using Oracle Gen2 Cloud, according to the statement. IT professionals running Cerner systems will not have access to patient data, maintaining privacy standards.

Oracle partners Re-Quest, Avaap and Perficient have told CRN in the past that health care is a strong vertical for their Oracle practices.

Last year, Microsoft announced the acquisition of voice-to-text services company Nuance this year for $16 billion to further deepen the company’s health care offerings.

Cerner traded at about $92 a share Monday morning. Oracle traded at about $80 a share Monday morning.