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For Immediate Release 19 June 2000
THE MEDICAL HOUSE PLC Introduction and Background to the Company The Medical House PLC ("TMH" or "the Group"), is a group of companies that offers medical information services and equipment The Group operates in two divisions:
BUSINESS — INFORMATION DIVISION The Information Division aims to become a leading medical information resource for both the medical profession and the wider medical industry. It provides a wide variety of medical information in digital format, principally to website operators and training organisations under licence arrangements, and direct to medical professionals through its own websites. To date the Information Division has made two acquisitions and obtained rights to publish a wide range of medical content in a digital format. The Information Division currently comprises three companies: Medical House Publishing, Medecal (trading as Healthworks), and DERWeb. Medical House Publishing was established in June 2000 to market and distribute medical content, software and other services under the two exclusive agreements which have been signed to date. Medical Content and internet based services Medical House Publishing signed a five year agreement with The Johnson Agency, USA (the "Johnson Agreement"), under which it will market and distribute on an exclusive basis, in the European Union, content from adam.com, Inc, a leading USA based content provider of medical and health information products. Adam.com, Inc has a ten year operating history and is focused upon providing medical content for the use of medical professionals, students and consumers worldwide through business partners similar to TMH. In addition the Johnson Agreement gives the right to market and distribute services of HealthMagic.com, Inc and MedSeek.com, Inc. HealthMagic.com is a USA based website whose products include:
MedSeek.com is a USA based website which provides website design services through its SiteMaker technology, and website hosting together with the associated training requirements. MedSeek.com is designed specifically to meet the needs of the medical community and its customers include approximately 350 hospitals in the USA. Computer Aided Learning Under a five year exclusive licence from The University of Aberdeen's Medical Faculty Computer Aided Learning (CAL) Department , it will market computer aided learning products. Healthworks operates the website www.healthworks.co.uk, which is a significant source of medical reference material for a world wide audience of medical professionals. The company has a database of some 37,000 registered professional users and generates sales from its collection of around 1,000 CD ROM titles covering a wide variety of medical reference material. The principal revenue source for Healthworks is in selling medical reference material to other websites aimed at professionals and consumers. In addition, the website generates revenues from subscriptions to its newsletters and from the sale of reference material on CD-ROM through the on-line shop. DERWeb is a significant dental resource visited by dental professionals from more than 90 countries around the world. It has direct links with, and is used by, 18 professional dental societies. The site had approximately 25,000 visits in April 2000. The Directors believe that the key strengths of DERWeb are its library of over 2,000 digitally stored dental images and its profile in the dental community. The strategy of the Information Division is to provide a source of website development services and database driven content to other websites and, to provide a "one stop shop" for the medical profession, hospitals, professional societies and medical product service providers catering for their reference, information, study and other requirements: Content Provider
The Directors believe that the distribution of medical content via the internet has significant advantages over traditional methods. The key advantage to TMH is one of cost: once the costs of acquiring the proprietary content, licence or royalties have been met the costs of storing and distributing content are relatively low and more timely than distribution of paper books and journals. The advantages to the user include the ability to perform database searches of the available content and remote access to a large volume of information. Discussions are taking place with a number of blue chip companies and a government organisation to license the supply of website content. Technological advances Large volumes of data and in particular images can be down loaded on currently available technology. However, the Directors expect that the introduction of ADSL and other higher bandwidth technologies will enable content to be accessed and downloaded much faster than is currently possible and that this advance will provide an opportunity to both TMH and its customers. Higher bandwidth technology is of particular relevance to the distribution of still images and video images. There is an established commercial demand for medical images from academics and other publishers who wish to include such images in their publications. The Directors anticipate that the introduction of ADSL will enable video images to be viewed on the internet and this service will be added to the Healthworks range of medical content. Virtual Medical Communities A contract has been signed with British Telecommunications PLC to co-ordinate approximately 1,000 investigators involved in clinical trials. Healthworks is providing a news service, Medline, its own `Health on the Internet' database and, importantly, a discussion group area for interaction and feedback between the participating pharmaceutical companies and the investigators. The Directors believe that Healthworks was chosen by British Telecommunications PLC because of its specialist knowledge and experience. Digital Secure Patient Records Under the Johnson Agreement, Medical House Publishing will work with Healthmagic.com, a leading encryption platform and secure patient record architecture, to develop a market for its products in the EU on an exclusive basis. The HealthMagic.com range of products includes HealthCompass a personal health management tool that allows consumers to establish a lifelong health record for themselves and their family members. The HealthCompass service sits on a platform that utilises digital certificates and the latest encryption and security technology, to ensure that all information contained within is private and secure. This combination of accessibility and security provides consumers with online access to their health information from anywhere in the world and at any time of day. Universities Discussions are taking place with a number of universities to place training and course information on the internet and to make it accessible to students and trainees. Healthworks intends to create a valuable internet database for medical students. The Directors view these relations as having a high importance to the Information Division as universities provide a concentration of published research and archive material. Website development and hosting Under the Johnson Agreement, Medical House Publishing will work with MedSeek.com, a medical website development company with 350 hospitals under contract, to launch hospital and other medical clinic website development services on an exclusive basis in the EU. BUSINESS — PRODUCT DIVISION Eurocut manufactures a range of high quality orthopaedic surgical instruments for an international blue-chip customer base. The majority of these instruments are employed in hip and knee replacement surgery. Eurocut also manufactures instruments for use in shoulder, spinal and trauma surgery. The quality of its products is fundamental to Eurocut and is measured in terms of design, materials, accuracy of machining and finish; to achieve this, Eurocut has invested in computer controlled integrated design and machining technology for turning, milling, grinding, finishing and marking the products. Creative Medical Design was incorporated in January 2000 to take on the role of Eurocut’s design department and to allow it some autonomy to offer a design service, not just to the orthopaedic sector but to the wider medical industry. Significant investment has been made in the design services of Creative Medical Design. Eurocut and Creative Medical Design work closely with customers in the development of orthopaedic instruments. The highly developed skills of Creative Medical Design’s experienced operators and its integrated Unigraphics CAD-CAM system provide the capability to cope with the complexity and sophistication of Eurocut’s products and to add value to Eurocut’s customers’ designs. The Directors’ strategy for Eurocut is to continue to seek improvements in production techniques and efficiency, and to take advantage of and increase market share in an established market that is growing as the average age of the population increases. DIRECTORS Bryan Bodek (aged 47 years) - Non-executive Chairman Bryan Bodek became chairman of The Medical House in June 2000. He is also the managing director of Airline Services Limited, a supplier of aircraft presentational services to airlines in this country and overseas. Prior to his joining Airline Services Limited in January 2000 he was the managing partner and head of corporate fnance at Kuit Steinart Levy solicitors, in Manchester, where he has had 20 years experience advising in corporate transactions. In February 2000 he was appointed a director of Manchester City PLC. Ian Townsend (aged 45 years) - Chief Executive Ian Townsend qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1976 and worked for KPMG until 1979, when he set up his own practice in Harrogate and York. In 1986 he formed Townsend Management Consultants Ltd, specialising in corporate recovery. He became finance director of Conrad PLC in 1993, and was instrumental in managing the turnaround of Conrad. He later played a key role in the reversal of Sheffield United PLC into Conrad, and stayed on the board of Sheffield United PLC, latterly as chief executive, until November 1998. Ian formed Eurocut along with Gerry Kemp in 1988 and, until the formation of The Medical House, he served as chairman. He became chief executive of The Medical House in January 2000. Gerry Kemp (aged 56 years) - Operations Director Gerry Kemp trained as a metallurgist at West Yorkshire Foundries in Leeds. He moved on to Ennore Foundries, Madras, India, where he commissioned plant and equipment to produce cast iron cylinder heads. In 1969 he became a sales engineer for Abrafract Ltd, Sheffield, and in 1980 formed Kemmer Engineering which took over the Abrafract agency in Yorkshire and the North East. The agency was held until 1987, when Abrafract was taken over. He formed Eurocut in 1988 with Ian Townsend and has been managing director since 1990. He will continue in this role, bringing his considerable manufacturing expertise to the Board. Philip Drury (aged 50 years) - Non-executive Director Philip Drury studied at the University of Birmingham before moving in 1972 to the department of Technical Surgery at the University of Nottingham, where his main work was gastro-intestinal motility. Following two years in the Departments of Surgery and Physiology and Pharmacology, Nottingham, in 1975 he moved to the Department of Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield. Between 1975 and 1988 he prepared over 90 reports for the DHSS and the Medical Devices Directorate on equipment evaluation and defect investigations. In 1988 he became chief executive of Biomedical Equipment Evaluation and Services. In January 1995 he formed his own consultancy business "Philip Drury Medical Technologies" specialising in medical device technology. He is also a consultant with Medilink and PA Consulting Group. He is regularly consulted by European Competent Authorities, including the UK's own Medical Devices Agency, and brings considerable experience and expertise to the Board. - Ends - For further information, please contact: The Medical House PLC: 0114 261 9011 Ian Townsend, Chief Executive: www.themedicalhouse.com Brewin Dolphin Securities Ltd : 0113 241 0130 Mark Brady/Andrew Emmott: www.brewindolphin.co.uk Square Mile Communications: 020 7601 1000 Mike Wort/Georgina Briscoe: info@sq-mile.com |
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