Oracle Gains Antitrust Approvals for $28B Purchase of EHR Vendor Cerner

Cloud giant Oracle Corporation has obtained all required antitrust approvals for its proposed acquisition of EHR vendor Cerner, including European Commission clearance.

Oracle expects to complete the tender offer following the expiration of that offer at midnight Eastern time on June 6, 2022. Completion of the tender offer is subject to the conditions described in the tender offer statement on Schedule TO filed by Oracle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on January 19, 2022.

“Working together, Cerner and Oracle have the capability to transform healthcare delivery by providing medical professionals with a new generation of healthcare information systems,” Larry Ellison, Oracle chairman and chief technology officer, said in a press release. “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,” Ellison added.

David Feinberg, chief executive officer and president of Cerner, noted that becoming a dedicated industry business unit of Oracle is set to help improve the clinician EHR experience to provide more high-quality and efficient care.

“Cerner has been a leader in helping digitize medical care, and now it’s time to realize the real promise of that work with the care delivery tools that get information to the right caregivers at the right time,” said David Feinberg, chief executive officer and president of Cerner.

Oracle’s Autonomous Database will modernize Cerner’s systems and move them to Oracle’s next-generation cloud, according to Mike Sicilia, Oracle executive vice president of industries.

“This can be done very quickly because Cerner’s largest business and most important clinical system already runs on the Oracle Database,” Sicilia explained. “No change required there. What will change is the user interface. We will make Cerner’s systems much easier to learn and use by making hands-free voice technology the primary interface to Cerner’s clinical systems.”

The all-cash tender offer for $95.00 per share, or approximately $28.3 billion, is immediately accretive to Oracle’s earnings.

Ellison will discuss the Cerner acquisition and Oracle’s new cloud-based health management applications suite at a virtual event on June 9, 2022, at 3:00 PM CT.