Oracle Eyes Monday Close For $28B Cerner Acquisition

“Working together, Cerner and Oracle have the capability to transform healthcare delivery by providing medical professionals with a new generation of healthcare information systems,” Oracle Chief Technology Officer and co-founder Larry Ellison said in a statement.

Oracle expects to close its $28.3 billion acquisition of healthcare digital information system provider Cerner as soon as Monday, a move that will greatly expand Oracle’s back office technology offerings for hospitals and healthcare service providers.

Austin, Texas-based Oracle has obtained all required antitrust approvals for the Cerner purchase, including achieving European Commission clearance, according to a company statement late Wednesday. Oracle expects to complete a tender offer for Cerner shares “promptly” following the offer’s expiration at midnight Eastern time on Monday.

“Working together, Cerner and Oracle have the capability to transform healthcare delivery by providing medical professionals with a new generation of healthcare information systems,” Oracle Chief Technology Officer and co-founder Larry Ellison (pictured) said in the statement.

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He continued: “Better information enables better treatment decisions resulting in better patient outcomes. Our new, easy-to-use systems are designed to lower the administrative workload burdening our medical professionals while improving patient privacy and lowering overall healthcare costs.”

CRN has reached out to Oracle for additional comment.

Oracle initially revealed the deal for Kansas City, Mo.-based Cerner in December.

In March, Ellison said on an Oracle earnings call with analysts that the Cerner acquisition would position Oracle to dominate the health care back office technology space. Oracle is adding industry-specific features to its own products to improve nurse and doctor scheduling plus inventory management, he said.

“No one‘s ever really tried this before,” he said at the time. “But we have all the pieces. We have the payment pieces. We automate a lot of the insurers. We have HCM [human capital management], which allows us to help them manage their workforce. We have ERP [enterprise resource planning], which helps them keep track of inventory. And soon we will have Cerner, which will help them to deliver care to patients.”

The Cerner acquisition will “be substantially accretive to Oracle‘s earnings” in fiscal year 2023, Oracle CEO Safra Catz said in Wednesday’s statement. The purchase price comes to $95 a share in cash, Oracle’s largest acquisition in the company’s history.

Oracle plans to modernize Cerner’s systems with the Oracle Autonomous Database, Apex low-code development tools and voice-enabled user interface and then move those systems to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), said Mike Sicilia, Oracle executive vice president, industries, in the Wednesday statement. Oracle also expects to change the user interfaces for Cerner’s systems to make them hands free and easier to learn. Sicilia said that work can be done quickly because “Cerner’s largest business and most important clinical system” already run on the Oracle Database.

Cerner will join Oracle as a dedicated industry business unit, providing “an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate our work modernizing electronic health records, improving the caregiver experience, and enabling more connected, high-quality and efficient patient care,” Cerner CEO and President David Feinberg said in the statement.