EU Gives Oracle Okay For Cerner Acquisition

Oracle has received final regulatory clearance for its pending $28.3 billion purchase of the healthcare data company Cerner. The deal is expected to close Monday.

The final step in the regulatory process was approval from the European Commission, which has now been received, the company said.

Oracle announced the deal, its biggest ever, in December last year. It will give it access to a trove of data and could attract more healthcare clients to its cloud platform. 

Cerner, a hospital facility management software-maker, produces high-end  health information technology services, devices, and hardware that rely on complex troves of patient data to help navigate various aspects of the US healthcare system, including availability and coverage of medical professionals to help people get the best coverage available. 

Cerner’s data can help Oracle train and improve the software maker’s artificial intelligence-based cloud services. The company, whose software traditionally ran in its customers’ data centers, has started shifting its service to cloud computing providers.

Tech giants such as Microsoft have ramped up investments in the healthcare sector, spurred by demand for cloud-based solutions during the pandemic.

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