Dassault Systèmes buys ArisGlobal for $1.8 billion to build unified life-sciences AI

Dassault Systèmes has completed its acquisition of ArisGlobal, paying $1.8 billion in cash to add regulatory, safety and medical-affairs software to its life-sciences business. Announced October 28, 2026, the deal underpins a planned unified AI platform linking drug discovery, clinical development, manufacturing and patient outcomes—not just tools for one stage of developing a medicine.

The purchase includes up to $200 million in additional consideration tied to multi-year AI-related revenue milestones. That portion is conditional, separate from the cash paid at closing. The stated trigger is revenue from AI-related business, rather than a milestone for drug discovery or patient outcomes.

ArisGlobal also brings an established pharmaceutical customer base. According to Dassault Systèmes, its platform serves more than 200 clients, including half of the top 50 global biopharma companies. The company describes the software as a single source of truth for regulatory, safety, quality and medical affairs.

$1.8 billionCash paid at closing

Dassault Systèmes paid $1.8 billion in cash when the acquisition closed.

Up to $200 millionConditional additional payment

Additional consideration depends on multi-year AI-related revenue milestones.

ArisGlobal will sit alongside BIOVIA and MEDIDATA in Dassault Systèmes’ Life Sciences and Healthcare sector. The proposed platform brings together businesses with different roles across the drug lifecycle. Rather than treating discovery, trials and later safety work as separate activities, Dassault wants information from each stage to inform the others.

• BIOVIA supplies modeling and simulation capabilities for science, forming part of the company’s existing life-sciences technology base.
• MEDIDATA contributes clinical-development capabilities. Dassault says the business has supported 42,000 trials involving 13 million patients.
• ArisGlobal adds its platform for regulatory, safety, quality and medical affairs, extending the portfolio beyond scientific modeling and clinical development.

CEO and chairman Pascal Daloz argues that these activities have learned too slowly from one another. His stated ambition is a continuous learning cycle: scientific models improve, clinical trials become better informed, manufacturing adapts, and patient outcomes feed future innovation. Those are intended benefits of the combination, not clinical results demonstrated by the acquisition.

Dassault plans to combine AI with scientific expertise and its Virtual Twins technology—virtual models designed to be configured, simulated and used for prediction. The approach builds on an ambition it set out in 2020: extending virtual modeling from physical objects into living systems by bringing together biosciences, materials science and information science.

Dr. Ashwini Zenooz will oversee the three businesses as executive vice president and CEO of Life Sciences and Healthcare, a newly created role. She joins Dassault Systèmes’ executive committee and reports to Daloz. Her remit includes strategy, integration, go-to-market activity and sales, putting the organizational work behind the platform under one leader.

Zenooz is also responsible for strategic partnerships across pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical technology, diagnostics and digital health. ArisGlobal will retain Aman Wasan as its CEO. The structure therefore combines sector-wide responsibility for integration and commercial strategy with continued leadership of the acquired business.

A fellowship-trained radiologist with an active California medical license, Zenooz previously held leadership roles at Salesforce, Commure and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Dassault identifies platform adoption as her mission, alongside helping customers make decisions across the full life-sciences value chain.