Extra! Extra! Healthline Healthy and Wealthy!
First the Health:
Healthline announced today a series of agreements that will enable a broad spectrum of businesses to improve the way their customers find, understand, and manage health-related information.
Aetna, AOL, Ask.com, and NBC Universal are partnering with Healthline to use its search, navigation and content technology to address the shortcomings of general search engines when it comes to health-related information. According to the Harris Poll, out of 136 million Americans using the Internet to search health-related topics, 60% feel they get too much, too little, or irrelevant information.
With newly formed partnerships and existing agreements with Eons, the Health Central Network, Info.com, Locate-a-Doc, Merck, Merriam Webster, OmniMedical Search, PacifiCare, a United Healthcare company, Televox, and US News and World Report, Healthline is now positioned to reach an audience of more than 30 million monthly unique health information seekers by the end of 2007.
Then the Wealth:
To meet this growing demand for its health search technology, Healthline has secured $21 million in strategic financing. The round was led by GE/NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity, and included investments from Aetna Ventures LLC, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Reed Elsevier Ventures, U.S. News and World Report, and VantagePoint Venture Partners.
Summary from the CEO
“Top publishers, portals, search engines and health plans all partner with Healthline to deliver exactly what consumers are looking for in health information search – trusted, comprehensive and relevant medical information that enables them to make better healthcare decisions,” said West Shell III, chairman and chief executive officer of Healthline. “By integrating our semantic search technology, Healthline’s partners will provide their users with superior health search experience, transforming today’s generation of busy parents and aging baby boomers into a legion of better educated consumers of health.”
