French technology giant Dassault Systemes SE said today it has agreed to acquire U.S. life sciences firm Medidata Solutions Inc. in an all-cash deal valued at $5.8 billion.

The company said it wants to expand its presence in a life sciences market that was worth $8.2 billion in 2016 and is expected to develop at a compound annual growth rate of 12.9%, according to a forecast from Grand View Research Inc.

The company has already done several deals this year aimed at diversifying its technology and software business. Earlier this year it acquired a company called Trace Software International SA’s elecworks business, which is focused on the design of electrical and automation projects. And in March, it bought Argoism, a model-based systems engineering company, for an undisclosed price.

For those unfamiliar with Dassault, the French firm sells software to help companies in the transportation, aerospace and life sciences industries digitize their businesses. It’s primary offering is 3-D design tools that companies use for virtual product design and for enabling digital simulations during product development.

The acquisition of Medidata will help Dassault expand its presence in the life sciences market, which includes the clinical trials industry. Medidata’s software is used by clinics to manage back-office operations and data, and to perform analytics on their data so they can better understand the impacts of the drugs they are testing. The company competes against the likes of IBM Corp. and Oracle Corp., which sell similar software.

Medidata currently has a market value of $5.9 billion. Dassault has agreed to buy it for $92.25 per share, a slight discount on its closing price of $94.75 on June 11.

“It’s a logical evolution of the scope of what we do,” Bernard Charles, Dassault’s chairman and chief executive officer, told CNBC. “Life science is going to go through an accelerated digitization of its own processes, basically. That’s the motivation for Dassault Systemes to buy Medidata Solutions.”

Analyst Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said the acquisition highlights Dassault’s ability to diversify quickly into what it sees as high-growth markets.

“The company is quite good at it, considering it was founded in 1929 and was first focused on airplanes before moving into IT and 3-D rendering,” Mueller said. “It’s the same as if Boeing went into healthcare. Every transition is a risk, but you have to give a ‘chapeau’ to this entrepreneurial chameleon.”

Mueller’s colleague David Chou added that life sciences was an important industry for Dassault to try and break into, as the future of healthcare is focused on wellness, and that means preventing people from being admitted to hospitals.

“To do that effectively, companies need to have large data sets and focus on creating the next generation treatment, while also integrating with “internet of things” technologies connected to consumers,” Chou said.

Dassault’s acquisition is the latest in a string of big-money buys in the tech industry this month. Last week, Google LLC bought data analytics firm Looker Data Sciences Inc. for $2.6 billion. On Monday Salesforce.com Inc. followed up with its $15.3 billion purchase of Tableau Software Inc.

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