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WebMd to acquire Omaha's Emedicine
[January 19, 2006]

WebMd to acquire Omaha's Emedicine


(Omaha World-Herald (NE) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jan. 19--An Omaha online medical information company, Emedicine, has been bought by WebMD, another online source for physicians and the general public.

WebMD Health Corp. said Wednesday that it had paid $25.5 million in cash for Emedicine.com Inc., which it said had $6 million in income last year with "break-even" results on its bottom line.

The Omaha company's Web site says the firm, which was privately held, was launched in 1996 and provided a "clinical knowledge base" to physicians and other health care workers. A consumer health site, emedicinehealth.com, was started in 2003.



Jennifer Newman, a WebMD spokeswoman in New York, said that Emedicine's Internet site would continue to operate and that its offices would remain in Omaha. She would not say how many employees Emedicine has.

Emedicine was started in 1996 by Nick Lorenzo, Scott Plantz, Jonathan Adler and Jeff Berezin. Lorenzo and Plantz are graduates of the University of Nebraska School of Medicine. Lorenzo, a neurologist, lives in Papillion. Plantz, who for a time was the company's chief executive officer, is a physician in St. Petersburg, Fla. Both were Emedicine shareholders at the time of the sale.


Adler, a Harvard medical school professor, is president of Emedicine. Berezin, a Purdue University computer science graduate, is Emedicine's chief technology officer.

Lorenzo said there were a number of other shareholders.

The purchase of Emedicine was the second acquisition by WebMD in less than two months. The company announced in early December that it had bought Conceptis Technologies Inc., of Montreal, which provided "online and offline medical education and promotion."

WebMD had an initial public offering of stock in September, but majority ownership is still held by its parent, Emdeon Corp.

Since the IPO, WebMD's stock has traded as high as $40.95 on Jan. 11 and as low as $27.80 on Nov. 10. It closed Wednesday at $37.84, down $1.16 from Tuesday's close.

The company had $110.2 million in revenue in 2003, losing $7.43 million. In 2004, the company had $6.46 million in profits on revenue of $134.2 million.

WebMD's revenue comes from advertising sales on its sites and by other health-care services it sells to businesses, such as private online sites that give employees tools to compare such things as medical insurance plans and medical care options.

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