Zume Life

ZumeLife (Los Altos, CA) aims to empower and motivate individuals to become fully and effectively engaged in managing their own health.

The "4 R" Zume Life system has two key components: a mobile device called a "Zuri" that provides day-to-day Reminder and Record functionality, and a website that patients and their caregivers can use to Review health status and make decisions on how best to Respond to the patterns seen.

Currently, Zuri is available as an application that runs on the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. Other versions of Zuri are coming, according to the firm.

Zume Life is all about making self-care a reality for those struggling to manage and treat chronic ailments and conditions. With the Zuri the chronically ill patient can connect the right professionals to their own Personal Wellness Ecosystem.

From www.freepatentsonline.com: Zume Life has United States Patent Application 20080006700, Method and apparatus for identifying and scheduling medicine intake, dated 01/10/2008:

A novel system and method for identifying objects uses a device, such as a pen. The device has integrated components and wireless access to identify objects according to stickers placed on the objects.

BACKGROUND

A number of problems arise in taking medicine. Individuals need to remember to take medicine. They need to take just the right amount. Some individuals even take the wrong medicine if not prevented from doing so.

Many individuals take medicine on a schedule. Often times this schedule is regimented and involves a number of different medicines. The complexity makes remembering which medicines to take at which times difficult for individuals.

Caregivers sometimes create medicine schedules for the individuals. This requires that individuals have a caregiver. However, caregivers are in short supply and are expensive. Further, some individuals cannot remember to look at the schedule. This requires a caregiver to be present to look at the schedule for the individual as well as encourage the individual to take the medicine.

In identifying medicine, pill bottles all look the same to some individuals. The labeling on the bottles is small and sometimes difficult for to read. Individuals can misidentify medicine. This is dangerous because individuals who take many pills could become ill or overdose by taking the wrong medicine.

The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related herewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.

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Ameritox: Pain Prescription Management

Ten-year old, Baltimore-based Ameritox is a leader in pain prescription monitoring.

They're in the business of helping physicians monitor pain medication patients via a series of rigorous checks and balances for compliance with healthcare rules and regulations.

Ameritox processes thousands of specimens daily in their laboratory facilities in Midland, TX.



RxGuardian is their core product, which helps assess whether patients are taking their pain medication consistent with the dosage prescribed by their physicians. RxGuardian reveals far more than whether a patient is taking the prescribed drug or illegal drugs. The firm released a new version of RxGuardian in January of 2009.

From www.freepatentsonline.com: The firm has United States Patent Application 20080183503, METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATING TOXICOLOGY REPORTS, dated 07/31/2008:

The present disclosure provides methods and apparatuses for generating toxicology reports. Using the methods and apparatus disclosed herein, physicians can more easily understand toxicological lab test results. Physicians receive a toxicology report that explains, in plain language, the toxicological lab test results. A rules engine provides rules for interpreting the toxicological lab test results. Detailed explanations are associated with the rules, and the explanations appear on the toxicology report. The toxicology report greatly reduces the need for the physician to call the toxicology scientist.

SUMMARY: Ameritox lives in a big market opportunity: Getting Pain Med Usage Right.

About 33% of patients are currently taking more medication than prescribed, and 77% are not taking pain medications in strict compliance with their doctor’s instructions, per a study of 200,000 long-term chronic pain patients by the firm.

Further, some 11% of all urine samples contain traces of illicit substances, such as cocaine or marijuana. Some 37% of the samples don't contain any of the prescribed pain medication at all. The study also revealed that 30% of patient samples contained a medication not prescribed by the patient’s doctor, and found that 13% of the samples contained a dosage below the expected range.

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Healthline: eHealth Shakeout Beneficiary?

Our theory is that the recession is causing eHealth sites to shakeout, especially small ones that were much better at aggregating eyeballs than ad dollars.

If this is true the players among the "Big 10" should be up-trending in terms of audience.

San Francisco-based Healthline has been reasonably busy, as their last five press releases indicate:

1. 04/21/2009: Healthline Launches Internet's First Treatment Search Tool; Healthline DocSearch Allows Consumers To Search, Compare And Connect To Relevant Specialists
   
   
2. 01/20/2009: Healthline Networks Now Offers the Largest Condition Specific Health Advertising Network
   
   
3. 12/01/2008: Healthline Networks Selected as the Exclusive Search and Advertising Partner for myOptumHealth.com
   
   
4. 08/21/2008: Healthline Networks Now Ranked As Second Largest Health Information Advertising Network
   
   
5. 06/09/2008: Healthline Launches HealthSTAT On-Demand, The First Ad Serving Platform To Deliver Contextually Relevant Healthcare Ads.

Is any of this showing up in their web traffic? Take a look at the graph below-- the property had a surge just as eHealth sites began to fall out in 2008, but monthly uniques have since declined.

Still, some of the big players are no doubt benefiting from the current eHealth economic shear. More on this in the next blog post....

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MDLinx: Ten Years Old

Washington, DC-based MDLinx is ten years old:

MDLinx connects healthcare professionals and patients to tomorrow’s medical research article knowledge and provides the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries with highly targeted interactive marketing, education, content, and research solutions.

The company's solutions include:

• Targeted Online Advertising
• Content Licensing, and
• Market Research.

These solutions enable pharmaceutical, biotech, and healthcare clients to align offline strategies with online initiatives.

They compete on some level with Sermo, and appear to have a steady-albeit-modest drumbeat of traffic:

MDLinx is aimed at busy physicians, healthcare professionals, and a segment of consumers who seek to stay up to date with the latest research in the medical field. The company aggregates medical articles and research from more than 1,200 peer-reviewed journals and leading news media on a daily basis. Then their physician editors sort this content into 32 medical specialty sites, 36 patient sites, and more than 743 subspecialty sections, all available online. Users can choose to view this information online or subscribe to any of 700+ daily newsletters.

The company no doubt can earn lofty CPMs on their ads versus most eHealth sites: "MDLinx works with eight of the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the world, providing unparalleled online access to sought after target groups."

Of late the firm is moving in a market research direction, which might indicate they are seeing advertising revenue soften, as have so many in eHealth.

And they're offering to license their content to others, too:

The MDLinx network of 24 physician sites, 8 allied health sites, and 36 patient sites provides an unprecedented opportunity for healthcare companies and physician associations to provide targeted medical news to their users every day. MDLinx content feeds originate from more than 1,200 peer-reviewed sources and can provide daily content to your Web site or portal in more than 700 specialty and subspecialty areas. MDLinx offers content licensing through Web site updates and customized e-newsletters.

SUMMARY: The eHealth segment is going through a brutal shakeout as ad rates have tumbled and advertisers have cut budgets; the survivors will acquire, be acquired, or (as is the case with MDLinx) innovate and partner.

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Health Monitor Network: Traditional Magazines

Today we take a look at Paramus, NJ-based Health Monitor Network (HMN):

Health Monitor Network is the leading marketing platform for pharmaceutical brand awareness, DTC, DTP, compliance and persistency, patient education, and lead generation. With millions of readers of our magazines and custom guides, Health monitor Network has built a trusted media platform for hosting pharmaceutical marketing programs. Clients have utilized the HMN platform, encompassing 110,000+ medical offices, 266,000+ physicians, and 40 million patients / caregivers, for their new product launch and brand marketing programs.

MarketIntellNow Notes--

• Market Opportunity: problem, of course, is the trajectory of print in the Web age
  
• Product Line: best-in-class periodicals
  
• Positioning/Competition: one of two major players in a small market; key competitor is MediZine
  
• IP: None that we could discern
  
• Financial Strength: Solid track record back to 1984 founding
  
• Selling Horsepower: Strong relationships with medical practices and advertisers.
  

SUMMARY: We expect HMN will make a bold move to the web with their superb editorial content to compete more effectively with MediZine. MediZine's REMEDYlife.com already gets 700,000 unique monthly users.

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Rivulet & IP Video

Today we consider Herndon, VA-based Rivulet:

Rivulet Communications enables medical, government and enterprise customers to flawlessly transport high-bandwidth, mission-critical and real-time applications over existing IP networks.

In major healthcare institutions, video is increasingly becoming an essential element of improved patient care as well as physician training and collaboration. Rivulet's applications are currently used to transport, archive and access HD medical-grade video throughout the hospital campus over the existing IP infrastructure. The video quality Rivulet delivers is superior to that using compression mechanisms or analog solutions and can be accessed anywhere that a computer can be connected to the network.

In government and media applications, Rivulet's solutions are used to flawlessly transport VoIP, TDM (Circuit Emulation), video and satellite communications over existing IP networks. With Rivulet applications these services can be transported without the impairments typical of IP networks. As a result, our customers can confidently achieve network convergence and increase network utilization, while reducing the cap-ex and op-ex associated with continually over-provisioning and re-engineering the network.

These applications are powered by Rivulet's innovative core technology, Dynamic Synchronization Technology (DST). DST works by synchronizing packets as they enter the IP network, virtually eliminating network resource contention and the resultant delay, packet loss and jitter, as well as the low utilization typically associated with convergence over IP networks.

Through its broad product portfolio, breakthrough technology, strong leadership and partners, Rivulet Communications is delivering network convergence solutions for our customers.

MarketIntellNow Notes--

• Market Opportunity: big economic benefits in real-time training and collaboration
  
• Product Line: very smart "complete application approach" to medical video
  
• Positioning/Competition: early leader in a market that will attract big players
  
• IP: Total of seven current patents
  
• Financial Strength: $11.5 million "C" round in Feb-2009
  
• Selling Horsepower: Probably too early for indirect channels like this.
  

SUMMARY: Rivulet is sitting pretty with leading technology that enables HD Medical Video anywhere on and off the hospital IP network. While big players that OWN their back-end network will come, they're most likely acquirers of this nimble first-mover.

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CardioNet & Digital Home Health

We're impressed with Conshohocken, PA-based CardioNet (NASDAQ: BEAT):

CardioNet has developed an integrated technology and service–mobile cardiac outpatient telemetry (MCOT)—which enables heartbeat-by-heartbeat, ECG monitoring, analysis and response, at home or away, 24/7/365.

CardioNet is focused on helping physicians diagnose and treat patients with arrhythmias. Time is of the essence in diagnosing and treating arrhythmias. Delays can lead to increased morbidity and mortality and cause significant anxiety for patients. But rapidly diagnosing and effectively treating patients with arrhythmia can be challenging. Some arrhythmias occur too infrequently to be detected through 24-48 hours of Holter monitoring. Event recorders pose problems with asymptomatic patients and those who have difficulty triggering monitoring equipment. Correlating events with symptoms is often difficult. CardioNet offers physicians a powerful diagnostic and patient management tool to address these challenges.

MarketIntellNow Notes--

• Market Opportunity: digital home health is growing fast off a small base
  
• Product Line: well-crafted for both docs & patients with one small study so far
  
• Positioning/Competition: competitive set includes behemoth Philips Healthcare
  
• IP: 24 current patents
  
• Financial Strength: 65% annual revenue growth in '08
  
• Selling Horsepower: Strong in the US with 88 account reps covering 49 states.
  

SUMMARY: Companies moving what were once hospital-based services to the home can prosper if they navigate the shoals of IP, reimbursement et al. It's worth noting that CardioNet has product muscle ... and selling muscle. It has direct account reps in 49 of 50 states, flooding the zone in the USA before being lured to foreign shores where players like Dutch giant Philips are well-established and reimbursement methods are far different.

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