Corrections or additions?
This article by Barbara Fox
was prepared for the March 20, 2002 edition of
U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Medical Publishing: Line-Up Changes
Medical publishing companies in Central New Jersey
employ
more than 200 writers and editors and that does not count the in-house
departments of pharmaceutical companies nor the several dozen
companies
that offer an additional 1,000 jobs in pharmaceutical communications
and marketing.
But the industry has gone through hard time over the last three years,
and many of the medical publishing companies have done some
restructuring.
Unlike emedguides.com, most of the physician-based publications depend
on advertisements for new drugs. And the Food and Drug
Administration’s
new drug approval rates have dropped, according to Robert Preston,
the new CEO of Multimedia Healthcare at Princeton Meadows Office
Center.
"An unprecedented number of new products have been pulled from
the market," says Preston. "Our lifeline is approval of new
drugs — the existing products don’t need to match the noise level
of the new products."
Here are some changes in the medical publishing lineup.
Intellisphere Reorganizes
Michael Hennessy, CEO of Intellisphere, has bought the
Internet side of the company he founded — Multimedia Healthcare
— from his major investor, Freedom LLC. Meanwhile Freedom LLC,
based in Irvine, California, has exercised its option to buy
Multimedia
Healthcare.
Hennessy had founded Multimedia Healthcare in 1992 and took in a 50
percent investment from Freedom five years ago.
An Internet-based spinoff, Intellisphere uses both the Web and hard
copy. With 19 employees it publishes three Internet guides for
physicians.
Launched in 1999, Intellisphere’s MD net guide has a controlled
circulation
of 127,000. For primary care physicians it offers user-friendly access
to online medical content; the paper version refers to site links
on the web page (www.mdnetguide.com).
Intellisphere also publishes two other print guides to online
resources,
Family Medicine net guide (www.fmnetguide.com), a
physician-reviewed
resource, and Oncology net guide (www.oncologynetguide.com).
The deal is so new that these Net guide products are linked to the
Freedom LLC’s website.
Hennessy’s father, Jack Sr., was a publisher, and Michael’s brother,
Jack Jr., heads the fast-growing Medical World Communications at Exit
8A. On Intellisphere’s board are Stephen Barrett MD, known for his
debunking website www.quackwatch.com and physicians from Stamford,
Columbia, Vanderbilt, and the Mayo Clinic.
Plainsboro 08536. Michael Hennessy, CEO. 609-716-7777; fax,
609-716-4747.
Home page: www.mdnetguide.com
After the sale of Intellisphere, Multimedia Healthcare
continues to operate with 23 employees at Princeton Meadows Office
Center and with Freedom LLC, based in Irvine, California, as the
parent
company. Robert Preston, the new CEO, says that financial details
for the buyout are not complete.
A native of Hawthorne, Preston majored in business at Montclair State,
Class of 1977, and started out selling ad space for the Patterson
News, but he has been in healthcare publishing for 20 years. For 15
years, most recently as group publisher, he had worked in Montvale
for Medical Economics Thomson Healthcare (coincidentally the same
firm with which Dan Goldenson’s emedguides.com is now associated).
Most recently he was group publisher. After he and three other Thomson
executives were laid off in January, 2001, he was hired by Freedom
LLC to be "CEO in waiting" at Multimedia Healthcare. He took
over as CEO on January 1 and has just hired Kevin Bolum, another
former
executive with Medical Economics, as his chief financial officer.
Five years ago Freedom had acquired a 50 percent share of Multimedia
Healthcare; a year later Hennessy created the Intellisphere division.
A billion dollar, privately held company, Freedom’s flagship
publication
is the Orange County Register, and it has other daily and weekly
newspapers
plus eight television stations.
Freedom closed down or sold all its magazines except Multimedia
Healthcare
and officially exercised its option to buy Multimedia Healthcare on
January 1. Multimedia Healthcare continues to publish Clinical
Geriatrics,
Home Healthcare Consultant, Annals of Long Term Care, and Journal
of Gender Specific Medicine.
Road, Suite 440, Plainsboro 08536. Robert Preston, CEO. 609-275-3800;
fax, 609-716-8138. Home page: www.mmhc.com
Medical World
Communications
Jack Hennessy, like his brother Michael, has also made
changes to his medical publishing firm. Founded in the same year as
his brother’s firm, 1993, Jack Hennessy’s company, Medical World
Communications,
reports revenues of $100 million for fiscal 2001, up from $3 million
the first year. The executive and accounting offices moved from
Forsgate
Drive to Center Drive last year. About 22 people work in the new
Center
Drive office with 70 people remaining on Forsgate Drive.
Medical World Communications (MWC) company has 10 divisions and more
than 70 publications and information services; it claims an audience
of 1.2 million healthcare and dental professionals for its
publications
and continuing education programs. It also has offices in New York,
Chicago, Los Angeles, and four other locations and owns Stagnito
Communications
Inc., a publisher of specialized food and beverage magazines.
On Forsgate Drive are the editing and publishing departments for 14
of the magazines, including Cardiology Review, Family Practice
Recertification,
Internal Medicine World Report, Physician’s Money Digest, Resident
and Staff Physician, Surgical Rounds, American Journal of Managed
Care, Preventive Medicine and Managed Care, Generic Product Report,
Contemporary Esthetics and Restorative Practice, The Compendium, and
Contemporary Oral Hygiene, Cardiology Review, Pharmacy Time, Family
Practice Recertification, Internal Medicine World Report, Physician’s
Money Digest, Resident and Staff Physician, Surgical Rounds, American
Journal of Managed Care, Preventive Medicine and Managed Care, Generic
Product Report, Contemporary Esthetics and Restorative Practice, The
Compendium, Dentists’ Money Digest, and Contemporary Oral Hygiene.
For another magazine, PharmacyTimes, the eight-person editorial staff
works in Westbury, New York, and the actual printing for all the
magazines
is done in Kentucky, says spokesperson Bob Sorensen.
Jamesburg
08831. Jack Hennessy, CEO. 609-860-8088; fax, 609-860-5903.
Jamesburg 08831. Jim Granato, publisher, Pharmacy Times. 732-656-0200;
fax, 732-656-0818. Www.pharmacytimes.com
Excerpta Medica
Restructures
Excerpta Medica is an 80-person division of the medical
publisher Reed Elsevier that recently downsized and was divided into
two parts. Kevin Connelly, formerly the CEO, has left, as has Bob
Issler, who joined Medical World Communications on Forsgate Drive.
Colleague Medical, a group that conducted doctors’ discussion groups,
has also gone.
Remaining is the journal publishing business, and a business that
offers marketing-related information for the healthcare industry.
William Mino is the general manager here and has about 60 of the 80
employees,
though some serve both halves of the company.
The business model for Excerpta Medical’s journals in Belle Mead is
to pay costs by assessing a production fee, with profits coming from
reprints. "Typically, when we get a paper comparing drugs,
companies
order reprints to give to the doctors," says Stan Heimberger,
group publisher of two bimonthly journals — Clinical Therapeutics
and Current Therapeutic Research.
"The industry loves us, because our papers are very strongly peer
reviewed, and our quality is superb, but once a paper has been
accepted
it appears in the very next issue, period," says Heimberger. With
such a tentative production schedule, some issues are thick and some
thin, but quick dissemination of recently developments in a drug
therapy
is of prime importance to the pharmas, which distribute the reprints
to prescription-writing doctors.
Clinical Therapeutics also publishes in-depth review articles on
specific
drug therapies or disease states and includes pharmaco-economic
analyses
and health policy discussions as well. The articles are indexed by
all major biomedical abstracting databases.
Among the more than 1,200 other medical and scientific journals
published
by Elsevier are The Lancet, The American Journal of Medicine, and
the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
101, Belle Mead 08502. William Mino, business manager. 908-874-8550;
fax, 908-874-0700. Home page: www.excerpta.com
Therapeutic
Research, 105 Raider Boulevard, Suite 101, Belle Mead 08502. Stan
Heimberger. 908-281-3625; fax, 908-874-3250.
MediMedia
Leaving Town
Two Medi-Media companies moved from Phillips Boulevard
to Yardley on March 8. Brad Kozar had moved the managed care marketing
firm to Phillips Boulevard four years ago (U.S. 1, March 25, 1998).
It has been sharing space with Veterinary Learning Systems, the animal
health publisher, which also moved.
Yardley, PA 19067. Bradley Kozar, group president and CEO.
267-685-2788;
fax, 267-685-2966. Home page: www.managedcaremag.com
Line Road, Yardley 19067. Marty Caron, president. 267-685-2400; fax,
267-685-1221. Www.vetlearn.com
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Devcom’s Move
Princeton 08540. Janice Kessler Gross. 609-924-4666; fax,
609-924-3999.
Janice Kessler Gross has moved her full service marketing
communications
firm to 2 Research Way, Princeton Forrestal Center, leaving the newly
renovated building on Route 27 in Kingston to be rented out. DevCom
concentrates on the healthcare industry and has, as a particular
specialty,
medically relevant brand reminder items.
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Expansions
Suite 108, Princeton 08540. Barbara McCandless, branch manager.
609-452-8484;
fax, 609-452-9165. Home page: www.manpower.com
By combining with the Manpower’s Hamilton office, Barbara McCandless,
branch manager of the Carnegie Center office, expanded her Princeton
location. Two people came from Hamilton and more space was added.
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Crosstown Moves
Officials,
4 AAA Drive, Suite 101, Robbinsville 08691. Bruce M. Quinn, president.
609-689-3870; fax, 609-689-3167. Www.njasbo.com
After 75 years of existence, this business association has finally
moved into their own digs. "We’ve never owned before, always
rented,"
says John Donohue, assistant director. Formerly located in Bordentown,
the New Jersey Association of School Business Officials has moved
eight miles north to 4 AAA Drive, Robbinsville. Phone and fax are
new. "We saved up our money over a number of years, looked
aggressively
for the right property, and put down our down payment," says
Donohue.
"We’re near Route 130 and the Turnpike, it’s really an ideal
location
for us."
NJASBO is a professional organization that addresses the concerns
of those working in accounting, data processing, service management,
maintenance, payroll, purchasing, and transportation within a school
or school district. It has 585 active members, 200 associate members,
and 200 business associate members.
Road, Suite 205-A, Princeton Junction 08550. Srinivas Reddy,
president.
609-750-9158; fax, 609-750-0811. Home page:
Srinivas Reddy moved his software consultant firm from Plainsboro
to 55 Princeton-Hightstown Road, Suite 205-A, Princeton Junction,
08550 last year. Phone and fax are new. He offers Unix administrators,
network administrators, programmers, developers, and database
administrators.
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Leaving Town
Bought Out
Princeton
Executive Center, Suite 220, Monmouth Junction 08852. Yash Joshi.
609-951-8500; fax, 609-951-0580. Home page: www.ecomserver.com
On February 8 Silverline Technologies bought eComServer, and by
October
eComServer will have moved to Piscataway, Silverline’s headquarters,
where it will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary. Last March the
eComServer reached an all-time headcount high of 105, but as a result
of the market’s disaffection with E-commerce, it downsized 50 percent.
"We had been talking about this transaction for eight months,"
says Lazbert Oseni, one of the few original officers of the firm who
is still working there (U.S. 1, May 3, 2000).
207, Lawrenceville 08648. Robert Kelly, president. 609-219-0959; fax,
609-219-0459. Home page: www.infiniteds.com
Early in 2001 this software firm was doing so well that it planned
to move to the 22,000 square foot building formerly occupied by
Princeton
Polychrome on Alexander Road. Now, much of its software has been sold
to SAP, a leading application development firm based in Newtown
Square,
Pennsylvania.
Most of the 50 employees here are now working in Newtown Square.
Infinite
Data Systems developed pharmaceutical bids and contracts computer
systems under the IMHC product name.
Several former employers are working with what remains of the software
but will be moving out of 5,400 square feet on Princess Road. Jack
Finn, the former CFO, says he is looking for a sublet tenant.
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Deaths
of the urology department at Capital Health System at Fuld.
was an administrative assistant at Janssen Pharmaceutica in Titusville
and had worked at Novo Nordisk.
Corrections or additions?
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— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
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