CliniSys acquires Torex Lab Systems

Diagnostic and specialist clinical software solutions provider, CliniSys, today announced that it has acquired Torex Laboratory Systems (TLS) the company that owns and supports the LabCentre laboratory information management system.

CliniSys said TLS was bought from iSOFT which acquired it as part of its merger with Torex’s healthcare business. Part of an Office of Fair Trading ruling on the merger required the divestment of TLS and CLiniSys beat off competition from ‘multiple parties’ to secure the deal.

Group business development director, David Newell, stressed that the acquisition did not mean there would be a rip and replace exercise to put CliniSys’ WinPath solution in sites using LabCentre.

“We will continue to support LabCentre alongside WinPath. We want to use the best IP from both products,” he added.

“Should anyone wish to take WinPath we are clearly happy for them to do so, but it’s not a rip and replace strategy,” he added.

Newell said there would be no redundancies and that TLS’s Glasgow base would be kept open. He said TLS was about one third of the size of CliniSys’ laboratory business and that the combined workforces would make up the largest compliment of pathology specialists in Europe.

TLS has 40 installations and is particularly strong in the north, though its customer base extends to Somerset, London and the South coast.

Laboratory information management systems are not part of the National Programme for IT’s (NPfIT) core, but they are supplied by local service providers as an additional service.

Fiona Pearson, CEO of CliniSys said “NPfIT is offering us exciting opportunities to expand the scope and supply of our pathology solutions to meet the future needs of the NHS pathology market. The resulting expansion in our capability and capacity supports the business transformation required of healthcare suppliers to meet the high standards of supply and support required by the National Programme.”

CliniSys did not release financial details of the deal.