IBA tells investors Lorenzo will launch in November

In its first annual report since acquiring UK health software vendor iSoft, for £166m last August, IBA Health on Monday reported that revenues have almost quadrupled to £168m, up from £35m in 2007.

The Australian company said the first version of its long delayed Lorenzo strategic software will have a “global launch” this November. A more advanced version containing ‘clinicals’ is then promised to follow within three months.

Lorenzo is the key software the company is contracted to deliver to NHS organisations as part of the £12.6 billion NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT). Lorenzo, first promised by iSoft in late 2004, has yet to go live at any NHS trust.

In its annual report the company states: “The global launch for Lorenzo is planned for November 2008. The roll-out of Lorenzo for the UK NPfIT program is on track with the current agreed timetable.”

A bullish IBA told investors it also expects to win additional business from NHS customers in London and the South of England. Specifically, the roll-out of iSoft software to iSoft trusts in London and the South is described as a “precursor to overlaying the Lorenzo platform”.

In addition, the company says that a new contract, signed with CSC in March 08, “secures revenues and provides for additional services and revenue”.

The Sydney-based firm, which has delisted iSoft from the London Stock Exchange, reported that annual revenues have increased by 381% since buying iSoft, up to £168m. The figures up to the end of June show include eight months of iSoft revenues.

Since acquiring iSoft some 80% of IBA’s revenues now come from outside Australia and South East Asia, chiefly from the English NHS where iSoft is currently the largest single existing supplier of installed systems.

The annual report said that IBA had achieved increased revenue under the UK National Programme for IT, where it is a sub-contractor to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), “through tight cost control and higher integration synergies than we originally indicated”. Cost savings synergies were reported at £12.6m.

IBA chairman Gary Cohen said 2008 has seen a “transformational change” in the IBA business. With the iSoft acquisition IBA had, he said “created a global health IT company”.

Cohen added: "We now have an international footprint of over 13,000 customers providing substantial recurring revenues and a base primed for the release of our next generation products.”

He made the following pledges for 2009: "FY09 will see the global launch of our unique next generation platform Lorenzo, delivering a transformational Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) based healthcare platform to our existing customers and driving future global growth opportunities.”

The IBA chairman said key relationships with UK NHS and the Irish Health Service Executive had “been enhanced at the strategic and operational levels and additional contracted revenues secured”.

The company also reported that “a strategic partnership model” had been established with CSC in relation to the NPfIT contract.