PHARMAGEST: major acquisition in the hospital information systems sector.


Villers-lès-Nancy, 18 July 2017 - 7:00 p.m. (CET)
PRESS RELEASE

HOSPITAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS
MAJOR ACQUISITION

  • MALTA INFORMATIQUE, a PHARMAGEST Group subsidiary (Euronext Paris #FR 0012882389 - PHA.PA), announces the acquisition of aXigate, specialised in new technologies and a French leader in the Hospital Information Systems (HIS) sector.
     
  • aXigate has developed a 100% Cloud-based solution for hospital-based patient care management
     
  • An acquisition with an international dimension opening up opportunities in the hospital sector for the PHARMAGEST Group's Solutions for Health and Social Care Facilities Division, spearheaded by MALTA INFORMATIQUE.
     
  • Continuity of care: a major priority in the transformation of the non-hospital/hospital landscape anticipated by PHARMAGEST Group through different investments made by the subsidiary MALTA INFORMATIQUE: DICSIT in 2016 and today aXigate.
     
  • High-value strategic positioning and operational synergies: this acquisition in the hospital information systems sector completes the current software offering of the Solutions for Health and Social Care Facilities Division of MALTA INFORMATIQUE and DICSIT INFORMATIQUE (elderly residential care homes[1], Hospital at Home[2] programmes, home-based nursing services[3].) and will generate major functional, technical and operational synergies.
     
  • 100% of aXigate's capital acquired which becomes a subsidiary of MALTA INFORMATIQUE.

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aXigate: a French Hospital Information Systems leader
Created in 2002 and based in Paris, aXigate SA develops information system solutions for healthcare establishments and patient care networks The company has been managed from the very beginning by a team coming from the leading engineering schools as well as doctors and nurses with a dual expertise in medicine and Hospital Information Systems (HIS).
In 2008, aXigate was awarded the OSEO/ANVAR "Innovative Enterprise" label.
In 2016, the French Ministry of Health awarded aXigate the Blaise Pascal Prize for innovative technology in the regional hospital information systems category for its contribution to public health.

aXigate is a developer of one of the most innovative solutions in the Hospital Information Systems market. Already in the 2000s it pioneered a fully integrated and configurable Web-based solution and today proposes a mobile solution. Today it is the only "Web Responsive" solution on the market operating on every type of terminal (tablets, smartphones).


A comprehensive solution for managing hospital-based patient care workflows
The aXigate system makes it possible to manage the entire patient care workflow: medical consultation, ER, hospitalisation, operating room, intensive care (resuscitation). It covers the full range of the needs of healthcare professionals (doctors, surgeons, nursing, pharmacist, medical secretaries) and is fully interoperable with other HIS applications.
Its functional scope includes a common patient record, the treatment file, the medication pathway, medical office automation, medical consultations and planning, activity coding, quality indicators, etc.

More than 40 hospitals equipped to date
The aXigate solution is destined mainly for public hospital centres, particularly regional hospital groups (Groupements Hospitaliers de Territoire or GHT).
Authorised for millions of patient records and thousands of users, aXigate is deployed at hospitals of all sizes and offers a multi-establishment architecture to manage the patient pathway which is a major demand of the sector. In addition, among the 40 hospitals and regional hospital networks (GHT), it should be noted that in 2013, aXigate was selected for the electronic medical record (EMR) market by the UNI.HA hospital purchasing group. In that manner, any public French hospitalcan acquire the aXigate solution. And since 2014, it has equipped France's second largest teaching hospital (CHU), the Marseilles Public Hospital.

A fully Cloud-based and responsive solution that is SIMPLE and OPEN addressing hospital information system needs.
The aXigate solution is fully web-based. This means it guarantees accessibility, use across all supports, operating flexibility and scalability.
The aXigate system is one of the only HIS solutions offering all advantages of the Web W3C/HTML 5 generation technology and the only Web Responsive system ensuring the application's complete mobility across all devices (tablets, smartphones).
All functions are accessible through a web browser and the system can be configured to the specific needs of every facility.
aXigate proposes a highly adaptable tool equipped with an application generator. The result is a very attractive offering fully aligned with the needs and constraints of hospital facilities. It also offers very good level of functional coverage which means that its deployment by healthcare facilities can be modular and optimised.

Non-hospital/Hospital continuity of care and complete knowledge of the patient file.
MALTA INFORMATIQUE now offers an innovative and comprehensive patient data exchange solution to all participants in the healthcare ecosystem through a patient-centred system.
Because hospitalisation represents only one step in the patient care pathway which continues after leaving the hospital, whether at home or a healthcare establishment adapted to the patient's specific situation, PHARMAGEST Group and MALTA INFORMATIQUE, through their information systems for pharmacies, health and social care facilities, Hospital at Home programmes and home-based nursing services, will be able to offer a very integrated system to facilitate the patient care management process. Similarly, the scope of synergies with aXigate also includes patient access to their medical file, in both non-hospital settings (through the ecosystem developed by PHARMAGEST Group in pharmacies) and hospitals (aXigate is soon expected to propose a portal reserved for patients receiving hospital-dispensed care).
As France is setting up regional hospital groups and local care networks, PHARMAGEST Group is anticipating market needs by investing in a system that will permit:

  • data exchanges between hospitals and non-hospital healthcare providers,
  • and the interconnection of participants in the healthcare process involved in the patient's care.

             
Significant financial strength and operational capacity: the advantages of the MALTA/aXigate duo in the hospital information systems market.
Backed by PHARMAGEST Group and its parent company, La Coopérative WELCOOP, MALTA INFORMATIQUE will give aXigate:

  • the advantages of substantial financial resources. PHARMAGEST Group's investment in this project is comparable to efforts carried out for all its Health IT business lines. As a reminder, in 2016 PHARMAGEST Group had annual revenue of €128.4 million and net profit of €21.4 million;
  • access to PHARMAGEST Group's 900 employees and its powerful French and European commercial network;
  • the ability to leverage PHARMAGEST Group's personal health data hosting authorisations. Since 2012 PHARMAGEST INTERACTIVE is authorised as a hosting services provider for personal health data by the French Ministry of Social Affairs and Health: Remote data backup services, hosting applications managed and administered by customers, hosting applications with direct patient access;
  • Significant operational capacity with technicians, project leaders and instructors. In its new scope, MALTA INFORMATIQUE now offers substantial human resources (+ 120 people) including a team of around 10 project managers and more than 25 consultants-instructors immediately deployable to address hospital information systems management issues.

A market experiencing a major information technology transformation: a significant growth opportunity
Whether in France, or more generally, worldwide, healthcare information systems that were developed more than 20 years ago are today obsolete.
In France, with the emergence of regional hospital groups (135 to date), public hospitals must define by the end of 2017 a common information technology master plan that will lead to information systems convergence before the end of 2021.
That means that all hospitals in France must rethink their information systems within the next four years.

For MALTA INFORMATIQUE, this represents a significant opportunity. The aXigate solution, in addition to providing a very high level of professional coverage also offers a multi-facility solution through a single database to manage the patient care pathway through different hospital facilities at the territorial and, if need be, the national level.

Significant international potential
Today, while the system developed by aXigate is scaled for the French market, its European potential is indisputable: the global management solution available through this system, particularly for the EMR, ensuring continuity of care across hospital and non-hospital pathways is of interest to all industrialised countries universally concerned by the healthcare economy challenges. The aXigate system will soon be available in English

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For Grégoire de ROTALIER, MALTA INFORMATIQUE's Chair, "This represents a major acquisition for us: Through the combination of the cutting-edge technological expertise and operational quality of the system developed by aXigate and the breadth of our offerings, the new entity will generate added value to all our customers and those of aXigate, in both the non-hospital and hospital segments. In addition, the business model developed by aXigate is extremely relevant to the French market. By building on the quality of the existing technical foundations, our aim is to adapt over the medium term this innovative model in other European countries."

For Dominique PAUTRAT, Managing Director of PHARMAGEST INTERACTIVE "PHARMAGEST Group has once again strengthened its capacities to propose a global patient-centred ecosystem. Until now, this offering was largely focused on the non-hospital segment with our software solutions for pharmacies, elderly residential care homes, Hospital at Home programmes, and home-based nursing services. With aXigate, our ecosystem now also includes the hospital-based patient care segment. For healthcare professionals, this new scope guarantees an effective response to the priority of continuity in care and treatment across the "non-hospital/hospital" spectrum. For the patient, this provides a guarantee of quality in terms of the standard of care and attendance".

For Thierry CHAPUSOT, Chair of the Board of Directors of PHARMAGEST INTERACTIVE and Chair of the La Coopérative WELCOOP Executive Committee: "aXigate is a technological gem: it proposes the most technologically complete solution in the hospital IT market and at the cutting edge for 100% cloud-based HIS solutions. As such, this represents a strategic acquisition for PHARMAGEST Group and a major milestone as we become the only company in Europe with the operational capability to manage the coordination of care across the non-hospital and hospital pathways. This transaction, with an international dimension, is in line with PHARMAGEST INTERACTIVE's historical track record of anticipating market needs, innovating, creating value for customers and guaranteeing patient access to quality healthcare.

For Vincent LECLERC, Chair of aXigate: "Our goal was to leverage aXigate's potential through the backing of a top-performing and well known information technology group. By joining forces with MALTA INFORMATIQUE and in consequence PHARMAGEST Group and La Coopérative WELCOOP, we now have the resources to support our offering for hospitals and regional hospital groups. In particular I am thinking of the deployment of our system by other regional hospital groups and members of the UNI.HA hospital purchasing group that have not yet adopted our solution. We will also be able to complete several improvements to our offering, such as the development of a dedicated portal for patients offering them access to information relating to their hospital stay."

Upcoming financial publications of PHARMAGEST INTERACTIVE:
- Publication of 2017 H1 revenue: 10 August 2017.
- Publication of 2017 H1 results: 22 September 2017.

About MALTA INFORMATIQUE
MALTA INFORMATIQUE, a wholly-owned subsidiary of PHARMAGEST Group, is an independent software vendor specialised in applications for elderly residential care homes and day care facilities, a fast-growing sector in which it has a market share exceeding 10%. Its TITAN application is the only solution on the market covering the entire medication pathway for elderly residential care homes. At 31 December 2016, MALTA INFORMATIQUE was installed at 1,580 care homes.
MALTA INFORMATIQUE also operates in the hospital at home segment with its subsidiary DICSIT INFORMATIQUE and equips a broad range of structures: Hospital at Home programmes, home-based nursing services, Local Information and Coordination Centres for the Elderly (CLIC) and Collaborative home-based support and care services (SPASAD).

About PHARMAGEST Group:
PHARMAGEST Group is the French pharmacy information technology leader, with a 43.5% market share and more than 900 employees. The Group's strategy is based on a core business, information technology innovation to improve health care, and on the development of two priorities: 1/ Services and technologies for healthcare professionals, with a focus on assisting pharmacies in the area of patient medication compliance; and 2/ technologies for improving the efficacy of healthcare systems.
To roll out that strategy, PHARMAGEST Group has developed specialised businesses, including pharmacy IT, e-Health solutions, solutions for healthcare professionals, solutions for pharmaceutical laboratories, connected health devices and apps, and a sales financing marketplace.
These businesses are now divided into four divisions: The Solutions for Pharmacy Division - Europe, the Solutions for Health and Medical-Social Institutions Division, the Solutions for e-Health Division, and the Fintech Division.

Listed on Euronext Paris(TM) - Compartment B
Indices: CAC® SMALL and CAC® All-Tradable par inclusion
Eligible for the Long-Only Deferred Settlement Service (SRD)
ISIN: FR 0012882389 - Reuters: PHA.PA  - Bloomberg: - PMGI FP

For all the latest news go to www.pharmagest.com

CONTACTS

PHARMAGEST INTERACTIVE
Analyst and Investor Relations:
Chief Administrative and Financial Officer: Jean-Yves Samson
Tel. +33 (0)3 83 15 90 67 - jean-yves.samson@pharmagest.com

Media Relations:
FIN'EXTENSO - Isabelle APRILE
Tel. +33 (0)1 39 97 61 22 - i.aprile@finextenso.fr

MALTA INFORMATIQUE
Grégoire DE ROTALIER: Chair
Tel.: +33 (0)5 57 35 19 25 - gregoire.derotalier@malta-informatique.fr

AXIGATE
Vincent LECLERC - Chair and Managing Director
Tel.: +33 (0)1 45 89 66 66- vincent.leclerc@axigate.fr  



[1] EHPAD: Etablissements d'Hébergement de Personnes Agées Dépendantes

[2] HAD: Hôpital A Domicile

[3] SSIAD: Services de Soins Infirmiers A Domicile


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PHARMAGEST: major acquisition in the hospital information systems sect