Advanced shares stir on Pfizer deal

Shares in IT services specialist Advanced Computer Software stirred in early dealings today, on news of a five-year tie-up with pharmaceuticals behemoth Pfizer.

‘Advanced’, focused on the healthcare and commercial sectors and bossed by energetic CEO and Elderstreet Capital partner Vin Murria, has signed a 5-year contract to provide a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) hosted solution in support of Pfizer’s new Vascular Health Check service.

The aim of the Pfizer Vascular Health Check Service is to provide primary care organisations with a comprehensive solution so that they can deliver high quality vascular health checks within a variety of settings, by supplying all the equipment, consumables, IT, service support and audit processes required.

AIM-listed and highly acquisitive, Advanced will supply a system, based on patient management software developed by its Health, Care & Analytics division, to guide pharmacists and clinicians through the NHS Health Check procedure. Its technology will not only help them to calculate patient risk factors, but also suggest courses of action and relay information about the test securely back to a patient's GP.

Though no financial details were disclosed, Murria insists that the deal ‘demonstrates how we can reach new markets by redeveloping existing products' and says Advanced will now work in tandem with Pfizer ‘to investigate new products and services that address the growing needs of the preventive healthcare market'.

Up 1.5p to 37.75p this morning, shares in Advanced, which made £1.9 million of pre-tax profit on £11 million sales in the six months to August, value the business at £134 million.