Back in 2016, IMS Health and Quintiles went through a merger of equals to form “QuintilesIMS” which was later renamed to be “IQVIA” in 2017.
"I" and “Q” stand for IMS Health and Quintiles respectively and "VIA" means "by way of”.
Since IMS and Quintiles both used to be separate public companies, let me discuss these two businesses separately at first before getting into the details of their post-merger status.