Swiss pharmaceutical and diagnostics company Roche has completed the acquisition of US-based privately held healthcare technology and services firm Flatiron Health for $1.9bn.

The acquisition will accelerate industry-wide development and delivery of breakthrough medicines for patients with cancer.

It brings together two companies committed to enhance the lives of cancer patients via the field of healthcare data and analytics.

Flatiron Health is focused on accelerating cancer research and improving patient care. The Flatiron platform allows cancer researchers and care providers to learn from the experience of every patient.

At present, Flatiron partners with more than 265 community cancer clinics, six major academic research centers and 14 therapeutic oncology companies.

By working with its network of community practices and academic medical centers, Flatiron has developed a suite of software products that help in positioning the company in the use of advanced real-world evidence at the point of care.

After this acquisition, Flatiron Health will continue its operations as a separate legal entity and its current business model, network of partnerships and its overall objectives will remain the same.

Roche said the integrity of segregated patient protected health information will be preserved, along with its sales and marketing, provider-facing and life science business activities.

The companies will use their combined expertise to advance the use of real-world evidence to set new industry standards for oncology research and development.

Flatiron Health has worked with industry leaders and regulators for the development of  new approaches on how real-world evidence could be used in regulatory decision making, including the design and validation of novel endpoints.

AT the time of agreement signing in February this year, Flatiron Health co-founder and CEO Nat Turner said: “Roche has been a tremendous partner to us over the past two years and shares our vision for building a learning healthcare platform in oncology ultimately designed to improve the lives of cancer patients.

"This important milestone will allow us to increase our investments in our provider-facing technology and services platform, as well as our evidence-generation platform, which will remain available to the entire healthcare industry.”