AmerisourceBergen is on the acquisition trail, bagging IntrinsiQ and Premier Source

Now-retired AmerisoureBergen CEO, Dave Yost, has said for several years that the company’s future growth is dependent on broadening its pharma sales, especially for generics, and providing more services and support for specialty pharmaceuticals. Now, new CEO Steve Collis has moved rapidly on the latter goal, authorizing the acquisition of Premier Source, a San Mateo, CA consulting firm specializing in market access issues for novel therapies and devices; and IntrinsiQ (Burlington, MA), which markets the IntelliDose IT system for documenting cancer care, and IntrinsiQ Data, for analytics on the oncology market.

Premier will be folded into AmerisourceBergen Consulting Services, a recently aligned grouping of industry-consulting services in AmerisourceBergen, which includes other recent acquisitions of the company such as Lash Group and Xcenda. Consulting Services is headed by Peyton Howell. IntrinsiQ will become part of ION Solutions, an oncology practice-management and drug distribution business within AmerisourceBergen Specialty Group. "The addition of IntrinsiQ's best in class informatics to ION Solutions' market leading portfolio of tools and services demonstrates our ongoing commitment to providing superior value to community oncology," stated James Frary, president of AmerisourceBergen Specialty Group. "Oncologists need strategic partners that can capture actionable intelligence, and the IntelliDose software and other tools will strengthen our customers' ability to meet the challenges in today's healthcare market."

While these acquisitions will no doubt help ABC win more business from healthcare providers and pharmacy businesses, the more interesting element for manufacturers is the company’s ability to assist in marketing and reimbursement for pharmaceutical products. Particularly in the specialty pharmacy space, where (for example) oncologists are transitioning from a “buy and bill” model to one of prescribing cancer drugs based on treatment pathways and formulary guidelines from payers or hospital networks, the market is in flux (Pharmaceutical Commerce, March/April, p. 14).