This company just had it’s IPO and became public not too long ago and as you can read they hold data on 85% of the world’s prescriptions which means of course they sell a lot of data too. 

When you look at the IMS executives, very little in clinical backgrounds compared to capital and other related backgrounds.  The last couple of years they have bought up other companies to include a CRM company and software as a service and social network analytics company to engage consumers.  IMS Health sells data and reports to all the top 100 worldwide global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as consulting firms, advertising agencies, government bodies and financial firms.   IMS said it processes data from more 45 billion healthcare transactions annually (more than six for each human on earth on average) and collects information from more than 780,000 different streams of data worldwide.

Need Any More Proof That Data Selling is An Epidemic Out of Control IMS Health Files for an IPO And Holds 85% of the World’s Prescription Data

In addition they company has approximately 400 million comprehensive, longitudinal, anonymous patient records and the main geographic area for storage is located in New Jersey.  Now that such companies are growing by leaps and bounds, we really need laws to license all of them so we know who they are and what kind of data they sell and to who, as there’s no transparency here at all.  When your data becomes flawed and you have to do all the legwork to fix it while big corporations make billions selling you data, it would be nice to have “some” reference for consumers and that would be establishing a license as it’s like the wild west out there. 

IMS Health, Data Mining Company Acquires Yet Another Company

Having all this data leads to one other side effect other than research and that’s money, big money and much of time when data is sold, you get scored on something.  This is out of hand in the US as it’s all about money and not making you healthier.  We have watched that over the last few years and companies are getting richer under “scoring” and sometimes used flawed data to score and evaluate you.  Insurers love that portion of their business intelligence with their risk assessments. 

The True Dangers With Corporate Obsessive Algorithmic Scoring of US Consumers - It Creates More Flawed Data For Sale And Makes Banks and Companies Wealthier As the Pace of Inequality Accelerates …

What we are asking for a consumers as a trail to search back and find who’s selling our data and what kind is not unreasonable but until there are laws nobody will do a thing.  So here this data and let’s say an insurer queries it with your Visa and MasterCard data that they buy? 

Insurance Companies Are Buying Up Consumer Spending Data-Time is Here to License and Tax the Data Sellers-As Insurers Sell Tons of Data, Gets Flawed Data When Data Buyers Uses Out of context Too

Now after reading this does anyone wonder why inequality is now growing at an accelerated pace?  The wealthy don’t have to deal with this so they are pretty much untouched.  The US spends more on “healthcare and data selling” than any other country and I think data selling is getting healthier as we can’t say the same for us. 

This is the reality for the rest of us, run and hide as anyone can take data and analytics and create any kind of story they want with any type of context and we all know that so again as these big data warehouses get bigger and bigger something better be done to regulate.  In 60 Minutes story on data sellers the FTC just sat up and said “we’ve lost control” so how does that make you feel, probably not too good.

 The Quiet and Unspoken Consumer Movement to Stay Off the Radar - Contrary To All You Read About Sensors, Apps and Wearables, More Folks Are Running for the Exit Doors…

DANBURY, Conn., Jun 24, 2014 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- IMS Health IMS -3.01% , a leading global provider of information and technology services to the healthcare and life sciences industries, today announced its intention to acquire certain Cegedim information solutions and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) businesses for €385 million (approximately $520 million) in cash.

Cegedim is a global technology and services company specializing in healthcare. The proposed transaction includes Cegedim’s CRM solutions that help life sciences clients in 80 countries drive sales effectiveness, optimize marketing programs across multiple channels and mitigate regulatory compliance risks; OneKey Reference Database that provides insights on 13.7 million healthcare professionals across the globe; and information solutions that use primary market research. In 2013, these businesses collectively generated revenue of €424 million (approximately $573 million) and adjusted EBITDA of €64 million (approximately $86 million). The acquired businesses will bring to IMS Health a team of more than 4,500 talented professionals with deep information and technology skills in areas that include software development, data warehousing, mobile applications and business intelligence tools, as well as analytics and implementation services.

IMS Health expects to finance this acquisition through a mix of cash on hand and existing credit facilities, with no material impact on its leverage ratio.

Customers include pharmaceutical, consumer health and medical device manufacturers and distributors, providers, payers, government agencies, policymakers, researchers and the financial community.

As a global leader in protecting individual patient privacy, IMS Health uses anonymous healthcare data to deliver critical, real-world disease and treatment insights. These insights help biotech and pharmaceutical companies, medical researchers, government agencies, payers and other healthcare stakeholders to identify unmet treatment needs and understand the effectiveness and value of pharmaceutical products in improving overall health outcomes.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ims-health-to-acquire-cegedims-information-solutions-and-crm-businesses-2014-06-24

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