Royal Philips, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, has signed an agreement to acquire Capsule Technologies, Inc., a provider of medical device integration and data technologies for hospitals and healthcare organizations. Capsule’s Medical Device Information Platform—comprised of device integration, vital signs monitoring and clinical surveillance services—connects almost all existing medical devices and EMRs in hospitals through a vendor-neutral system.

Moreover, Capsule’s platform captures streaming clinical data and transforms it into actionable information for patient care management to enhance patient outcomes, improve collaboration between care teams, streamline clinical workflows, and increase productivity.  

The acquisition of Capsule is a strong fit with Philips’ strategy to transform the delivery of care along the health continuum with integrated solutions, according to the company. Philips’ current portfolio already includes real-time patient monitoring, therapeutic devices, telehealth, informatics, and interoperability solutions. The combination of Philips’ portfolio with Capsule’s Medical Device Information Platform, connected through Philips’ secure vendor-neutral cloud-based HealthSuite digital platform, stands to greatly enrich and scale Philips’ patient care management solutions for all care settings in the hospital, as well as remote patient care.

“Integrated patient care management solutions supported by essential real-time patient data and AI are core to our strategy to improve patient outcomes and care provider productivity by seamlessly connecting care,” says Roy Jakobs, chief business leader connected care at Royal Philips. “The acquisition of Capsule will further expand our patient care management offering. We look forward to integrating our strengths, adding a vendor-neutral medical device integration platform that further unlocks the power of medical device data to enhance patient monitoring and management, improve collaboration and streamline workflows in the ICU, as well as other care settings in the hospital and beyond its walls.”

“We are very excited to become part of Philips and step up on our goal of empowering clinicians with simplified workflows and timely, actionable insights,” says Hemant Goel, CEO of Capsule Technologies. “Together, we will be even better positioned to liberate, aggregate, analyze, and share clinical data from connected devices that will support clinicians making more informed decisions, and ultimately drive the transformation from reactive care to insight-driven, proactive care delivery.”

Founded in 1997, Capsule is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts in the United States, and serves over 2,800 hospitals and healthcare organizations in 40 countries across the world. Capsule’s innovations are developed by strong R&D teams in the U.S. and France. In 2020, the company achieved sales of over USD 100 million with strong double-digit sales growth. The majority of sales is related to recurring software-as-a-service and licensing revenues.

Philips will acquire Capsule for a cash consideration of $635 million (approximately EUR 530 million). The transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2021. Capsule and its approximately 300 employees will become part of Philips’ Connected Care segment.