“I-Many continues to expand its life sciences capabilities and footprint [with the acquisition],” says John Rade, CEO. This and other recent acquisitions “further consolidate our leadership in contract management by creating the first comprehensive and integrated gross-to-net-net solution for our enterprise customers. We help our customers follow their contracts and their money, and now, we can help them follow their products.”

Even together, the companies do not represent a major portion of financial IT solutions for life sciences, but the capabilities are intriguing. Rade notes that its customers are using “both syndicated and non-syndicated” market data, meaning internal sales orders as well as sales data from industry market-research powerhouses like IMS Health. The ability to align these data streams can potentially address revenue “leakage” from chargebacks, errant product returns, improperly booked discounts or rebates. In commenting on the acquisition, Hussain Mooraj, a senior analyst at AMR Research (Boston) notes that “Pharma companies sometimes spend more in rebates and chargebacks than they do in R&D, yet their confidence in how well they are managing [that], and how well they are maintaining regulatory compliance, remains low.”