Business-as-usual in India for IMS Health & Quintiles post mega global merger

On Tuesday, May 3, IMS Health and Quintiles announced that the two are to merge globally, making what they call "Quintiles IMS an industry-leading Information and Technology-Enabled Healthcare Service Provider".

The deal, announced globally, is an all-stock transaction with combined 2015 revenue of $7.2 billion and combined equity market capitalisation of $17.6 billion.

Upon completion of the merger, according to a media release put out by Quintiles, IMS Health shareholders will own approximately 51.4 per cent of the shares of the combined company on a fully diluted basis and Quintiles shareholders will own approximately 48.6 per cent of the combined company on a fully diluted basis. The combined company, it also says, "expects to maintain dual headquarters in Danbury, CT and Research Triangle Park, NC, US."

So, what does this mean for India and the two entities operating here? Industry observers feel the move is unlikely to have any impact in India and is more likely to be business-as-usual for both the players, neither of which is listed in India. It could at best be complementary since the domains in which they are focused in India are slightly different.

In India, for Quintiles, key focus is seen as research-related services with around 6,400 people in all (the focus areas being clinical trials and allied research services like data management, bio statistics and phamacovigilance) and not so much consulting.

IMS Health has both consulting and market audit operations in India. So, since the broad domains of focus are different for the two in India, industry observers do not expect any impact of the merger on the operations in India. IMS Health is more focused as a market audit company doing market sales audit. IMS Consulting undertakes assignments from companies in India broadly around marketing and product portfolio.