Microsoft to acquire medical software vendor

Microsoft hopes to roll Rosetta Biosoftware's products into its Amalga Life Sciences range

Microsoft has agreed to purchase medical research software firm Rosetta Biosoftware.

Terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but Microsoft will acquire Rosetta's assets from parent company Merck.

Microsoft hopes to roll the Rosetta products into its Amalga Life Sciences line of software to improve its reach into research fields such as genetic and genomic studies.

As part of the deal, Merck will adopt the entire Amalga Life Sciences platform for its research operations. The two companies hope to finalise the transaction by the end of the month.

"The newly combined offering will enable customers to improve the management and analysis of genomic, biological and research data, helping to bring life-saving drugs and therapies to market faster, and accelerate the realisation of personalised medicine," said Peter Neupert, corporate vice president of Microsoft's health solutions group.

The computing demands of the health care industry have been playing an increasing role in the IT market in recent years. Healthcare providers and medical researchers have been major buyers in such areas as tablet computing, high-performance computing and data security.