Dassault agrees to buy Medidata for $5.8 billion

French company Dassault Systemes agreed to buy Medidata Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: MDSO) for $5.8 billion. The all-cash transaction was approved by the boards of directors of both companies and is expected to close during the last quarter of 2019.

The purchase price of $92.25 per share is at a slight discount
to Medidata’s Tuesday closing price of $94.75. For its most recent quarter,
Medidata had reported a 16% growth in revenue to nearly $174 million along with
adjusted EPS of $0.45. The company has a market valuation of $5.9 billion.

Medidata provides data and analytics tools for clinics and
medical device companies and Dassault hopes to expand its footprint in the fast-growing
life sciences market with the help of this acquisition.

Bernard Charles, CEO, Dassault Systemes said, “Medidata’s leading position in clinical trials complements our life sciences solutions on the 3DEXPERIENCE collaborative platform. Medidata’s recent expansion into real world evidence and analytics coupled with the power of modeling and simulation demonstrates how the virtual world will catalyse the next generation of patient-inclusive therapeutics.”

Medidata’s shares have gained 44% thus far this year. The stock was down 3.2% in morning hours on Wednesday.

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