KENILWORTH, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ILÚM Health Solutions, a provider of innovative technology and services to support infectious disease management, today announced it has acquired Teqqa LLC, which provides precision analytics for infectious disease management. Teqqa has been a development partner with ILÚM since the latter’s founding; this acquisition formalizes and strengthens the ongoing relationship. Details of the transaction were not disclosed.
“This acquisition helps reinforce ILÚM’s vision to transform the way hospitals manage infectious diseases,” says Paul Edwards, managing director, ILÚM. “The acquisition strengthens ILÚM’s ability to help hospitals efficiently target patients and accelerate time to appropriate interventions; efficiently and consistently track performance, prescribing, and patient outcomes; and enhance timely communication and clinical collaboration within the workflow.”
ILÚM, created by Merck’s Healthcare Services and Solutions (HSS) division, is collaborating with healthcare providers to improve infectious disease outcomes through the use of clinical decision support and electronic patient data, as well as tech-enabled solutions to facilitate antimicrobial stewardship programs and sepsis management.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that annually in the United States we face 2 million illnesses, 23,000 deaths and $35 billion in lost productivity – all attributable to antibiotic resistance.
Teqqa has deep experience working with hospitals to implement disease surveillance solutions and turn lab and medication data into actionable information. One example is Teqqa’s Precision Antibiotic Therapy (PAT™) analytic, which integrates patient-specific risk factors from the longitudinal record to offer timely insights for antibiotic use.
“In antibiotic stewardship, our ultimate goal is to make sure the right patients get the right antibiotic at the right time,” says Dr. Keith Hamilton, associate healthcare epidemiologist and director of Antimicrobial Stewardship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, which has been collaborating with Teqqa since 2014. “These solutions make previously unavailable data useable at the point of prescription. Our clinicians now have data at their fingertips to help them make the most appropriate decisions when it matters most. We look forward to collaborating with ILÚM to further validate how these solutions support the best possible outcomes for our patients.”
About ILÚM Health Solutions
ILÚM Health Solutions is a
provider of technology and services to support infectious disease
management. ILÚM is part of Healthcare
Services & Solutions, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Merck &
Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA (known as MSD outside the United States
and Canada), an independent business unit focused on improving the value
of care delivered to patients through evidence-based services and
solutions. ILÚM is organized and managed independently from Merck’s
pharmaceutical products business. For more information, visit www.ILÚMhealthsolutions.com
and connect with us on Twitter
and LinkedIn.
About Teqqa
Teqqa provides precision analytics for
infectious disease management. Through its software and mobile
applications, Teqqa helps hospitals optimize antibiotic use and combat
antimicrobial resistance. At the University of Pennsylvania, Penn
Medicine relies on Teqqa tools to power their antimicrobial stewardship
program. Teqqa is located in Jackson, WY and was founded in 2013. For
more information on Teqqa’s solutions, visit www.teqqa.com.
About Merck
For more than a century, Merck, a leading global
biopharmaceutical company known as MSD outside of the United States and
Canada, has been inventing for life, bringing forward medicines and
vaccines for many of the world’s most challenging diseases. Through our
prescription medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies and animal health
products, we work with customers and operate in more than 140 countries
to deliver innovative health solutions. We also demonstrate our
commitment to increasing access to health care through far-reaching
policies, programs and partnerships. Today, Merck continues to be at the
forefront of research to advance the prevention and treatment of
diseases that threaten people and communities around the world -
including cancer, cardio-metabolic diseases, emerging animal diseases,
Alzheimer’s disease and infectious diseases including HIV and Ebola. For
more information, visit www.merck.com and connect
with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn.
Forward-Looking Statement of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, N.J., USA
This
news release of ILÚM Health Solutions, part of Healthcare Services &
Solutions, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc.,
Kenilworth, N.J., USA (the “company”) includes “forward-looking
statements” within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S.
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are
based upon the current beliefs and expectations of the company’s
management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. There
can be no guarantees with respect to pipeline products that the products
will receive the necessary regulatory approvals or that they will prove
to be commercially successful. If underlying assumptions prove
inaccurate or risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results may
differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.
Risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to, general industry conditions and competition; general economic factors, including interest rate and currency exchange rate fluctuations; the impact of pharmaceutical industry regulation and health care legislation in the United States and internationally; global trends toward health care cost containment; technological advances, new products and patents attained by competitors; challenges inherent in new product development, including obtaining regulatory approval; the company’s ability to accurately predict future market conditions; manufacturing difficulties or delays; financial instability of international economies and sovereign risk; dependence on the effectiveness of the company’s patents and other protections for innovative products; and the exposure to litigation, including patent litigation, and/or regulatory actions.
The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additional factors that could cause results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be found in the company’s 2016 Annual Report on Form 10-K and the company’s other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) available at the SEC’s Internet site (www.sec.gov).
