Westminster, Colo., USA and Leverkusen and Dortmund, Germany – 2 October, 2006 - GHX LLC has acquired medicforma, creating a single company to drive greater supply chain efficiencies within the healthcare industry. By combining separate exchanges and leveraging supply chain services offered by each company, the new GHX will enable more healthcare suppliers and hospitals in Europe to conduct business electronically. Together, the two companies currently serve more than two hundred suppliers and over nine hundred active hospitals and other healthcare providers in Europe. With electronic transactions costing approximately five to seven times less to process than manual orders for both suppliers and hospitals, increasing opportunities for more business to be conducted electronically can significantly reduce overall healthcare supply chain expenses. Shareholders of both organizations have approved the acquisition, which takes effect immediately. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
GHX is owned by representatives of the entire healthcare supply chain, including hospitals, group purchasing organizations, manufacturers and distributors, and provides products and services to benefit both buyers and sellers.
“Both hospitals and suppliers suffer when business is conducted in a highly manual and inefficient manner,” says Axel Kudraschow, Head of Department, University Hospital Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt. “This market consolidation will benefit all involved with either GHX or medicforma by enabling us to not only conduct business with more of our trading partners, but also by automating more of the purchasing process from order to payment.”
In addition to trading partner connectivity, the combined company provides products and services to manage e-supply chain processes, including use of electronic transaction sets to automate purchase orders, dispatch advice and invoices, and help synchronize product data between buyers and sellers to minimize errors and improve reporting on purchasing trends.
“The newly formed single company will build upon the progress made separately by GHX and medicforma,” states Anton J. Schmidt, Managing Director Ethicon GmbH and Chairman of the Board BVMed (the German Medical Technology Association). “The combined exchange and united services will more effectively meet our goals in supply chain cost reductions, as well as those of our customers and the unique European healthcare market.”
By combining operations, GHX and medicforma can eliminate redundant costs associated with deploying separate exchanges and devote more resources to building and delivering products and services that meet customers’ most pressing supply chain needs. GHX CEO Mike Mahoney states. “As a result of the acquisition, hospitals and suppliers in Europe will be able to leverage the best of what GHX offers on a global basis.” In the United States and Canada, the company has expanded its suite of services to include other aspects of the supply chain, such as data synchronization, and order and contract management. Currently, nearly 3500 hospitals, 800 non-acute care facilities and 250 suppliers are utilizing GHX services in Canada and the United States to improve supply chain efficiencies.
medicforma leader Peter Elmer will serve as executive vice president of GHX Europe, and Norbert Kruchen, as managing director, will lead GHX business in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. GHX European operations will be headquartered in Germany with subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and partnerships in France, Spain and the Netherlands. GHX Europe plans to expand operations into additional European countries, including Portugal, Italy, Ireland and several Nordic countries.
About GHX
GHX empowers healthcare organizations to reduce costs and improve margins. This is achieved by delivering tools and services that automate processes and increase knowledge-based decision making. Service offerings include:
- Exchange services that support trading partner connectivity and provide electronic transaction sets, order validation and reporting tools
- Content services utilizing the GHX AllSource® product content repository as the foundation for data synchronization and advanced content services
- Contract services that maximize contract utilization
- Procurement services that enable automation of the requisitioning process
- Business Intelligence reports designed to provide strategic decision-making data
- Pharmaceutical business solutions allowing manufacturers to gain control over rebate and contract management processes
- Sales force automation services that allow healthcare manufacturers to streamline field sales processes and improve staff efficiencies
Through these services, healthcare providers and suppliers can improve efficiencies, automate processes and reduce operating expenses. Equity owners of GHX are Abbott Exchange, Inc.; AmerisourceBergen Corp.; Baxter Healthcare Corp.; B Braun Medical Inc.; Becton, Dickinson & Co.; Boston Scientific Corp.; Cardinal Health, Inc.; C.R. Bard, Inc.; Fisher Scientific International, Inc.; GE Healthcare; HCA; Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Inc.; McKesson Corp.; Medtronic USA, Inc.; Owens & Minor; Premier, Inc.; Siemens; Tyco Healthcare Group, LP; University HealthSystem Consortium; and VHA Inc. For more information, visit www.ghx.com.
About medicforma
As a neutral provider of transaction-based services, medicforma.com GmbH, Dortmund, is a partner for hospitals, manufacturers, suppliers and service providers.
medicforma's solution consists of an electronic ordering system for hospitals (e-procurement), an electronic marketplace for suppliers (e-marketplace) and an XML transaction system for transmission of purchase order, order responses, delivery notices and invoices (e-transaction).
medicforma processes approximately 70,000 orders with an estimated purchasing value of 65 million Euros per month. medicforma connects to 340 hospitals, and 120 supplier and manufacturer customers.