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Nuance Communications, a Nasdaq-listed company that provides speech solutions, has entered into an agreement to acquire Focus Infomatics, an India and US-based provider of healthcare speech recognition editing services, for a net consideration of $58 million.

Mumbai-based Avendus Advisors was the advisor to Focus Infomatics in the transaction. The acquisition is expected to expand Nuance’s capabilities in web-based speech recognition editing services, and also in automating manual transcription. This is believed to be $15-billion industry.

Focus essentially relies on technology to provide transcription services, and has clients like Ardent Healthcare, MD Anderson Cancer Center and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. It combines the use of speech recognition, a web-based editing platform and an India-based operation for delivery and customer support. The company was set up in 1999.