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Press Release
Palm Ventures Invests in Leading Healthcare Handheld Clinical Services Company
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ePhysician Focuses on the Use of Palm Powered Products for Healthcare
Providers
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM),
the world's leading provider of handheld computers, today announced that Palm
Ventures, its strategic venture investment group, has made an investment in
ePhysician, a health-technology company based in Mountain View, Calif.
ePhysician products are designed to help doctors improve patient care and
practice efficiencies through handheld services and information delivery. Palm
participated in the third round of funding for ePhysician, which was led by
Dresdner Kleinwort Capital and included Benchmark Capital, a premier Silicon
Valley venture capital firm, and CVS Corporation (NYSE: CVS), the largest
national pharmacy chain. The ePhysician deal is the latest investment for
Palm's $50 million venture fund, formed last fall.
Earlier this month, ePhysician announced the first fully integrated
product suite to combine prescribing, patient diagnosis and charge capturing,
and objective drug reference available on Palm Powered(TM) handhelds.
According to ePhysician, the software enables doctors to send prescriptions
securely over the Internet using a wireless handheld computer, capture
important patient diagnosis and billing information, and access reliable,
objective drug information. The product provides physicians with the
healthcare industry's most comprehensive suite of wireless applications,
enabling more informed prescribing decisions, improved practice efficiency and
enhanced patient care. Currently, almost 8,000 physicians in the United States
are using ePhysician's products.
"This investment in ePhysician complements our existing investment in
consumer targeted healthcare products, extending the strength of the Palm
Economy to the healthcare provider," said Robert Hayes, director of Palm
Ventures. "ePhysician software combined with Palm Powered handheld computers
promises to dramatically improve patient care. In addition to the efficiencies
and cost-savings the ePhysician software offers physicians in a clinical
environment, it provides fingertip-access to critical drug and patient
information that offers the greatest benefit -- the potential to save lives."
Palm Ventures' primary investment objective is to invest in companies that
will grow, enhance and support the Palm Economy, a global community of
licensees, OEM customers, and more than 130,000 developers and solution
providers that support the Palm OS(R) platform. Companies funded by Palm
Ventures will have a unique opportunity to work with the company and leverage
its resources and business opportunities.
More information on Palm Ventures is available at
http://www.palm.com/company/venture1.html.
About ePhysician Inc.
As the first company to offer prescribing; patient diagnosis and charge
capturing; and objective drug reference in one wireless hand-held computer
device, ePhysician increases practice profitability and enhances patient
safety through a secure, connected and integrated product suite. Based in
Mountain View, Calif., ePhysician was founded in 1998 by Stuart Weisman, M.D.
to improve the experience of practicing medicine while also improving patient
care. ePhysician is funded by Benchmark Capital (http://www.benchmarkcapital.com),
Sierra Ventures (http://www.sierraventures.com), Dresdner Kleinwort Capital
(http://www.dkbprivateequity.com), Palm, Inc.'s Palm Ventures
(http://www.palm.com/company/venture1.html) and CVS Corporation
(http://www.cvs.com). For further information, please visit
http://www.ephysician.com.
About Dresdner Kleinwort Capital
Dresdner Kleinwort Capital has a global Private Equity business with over
euro 3.5 billion (U.S. $3.3 billion, conversion as of January 19, 2001) under
management and ten investment teams making equity and mezzanine investments in
unquoted companies across Europe, America and Asia. The over euro 3.5 billion
in capital has been committed by major institutional investors, pension funds
and private individuals worldwide along with substantial funds from the
Dresdner Bank Group. They finance leveraged and management buy-outs, buy-ins,
acquisitions, business expansion, pre-flotation financing, recapitalizations,
corporate joint ventures and private equity investments in smaller public
companies. They also allocate capital to third-party private equity and
venture capital funds to increase co-investment opportunities.
About Palm, Inc.
Palm, Inc. is a pioneer in the field of mobile and wireless Internet
solutions and a leading provider of handheld computers (source: IDC, December
1999). Based on the Palm OS(R) platform, Palm's handheld solutions allow
people to carry and access their most critical information with them wherever
they go. Palm(TM) handhelds address the needs of individuals, enterprises and
educational institutions through thousands of application solutions. The Palm
OS platform is also the foundation for products from Palm's licensees and
strategic partners, such as Franklin Covey; Handspring; IBM; Sony; Symbol
Technologies; and TRG. Platform licensees also include Kyocera, Nokia and
Samsung. The Palm Economy is a growing global community of industry-leading
licensees, world-class OEM customers, and more than 130,000 innovative
developers and solution providers that have registered to develop solutions
based on the Palm OS platform. Palm went public on March 2, 2000. Its stock is
traded on the Nasdaq national market under the symbol PALM. More information
is available at http://www.palm.com.
NOTE: Palm OS is a registered trademark and Palm and Palm Powered are
trademarks of Palm, Inc. or its subsidiaries. All other trademarks are the
property of their respective owners.
SOURCE Palm, Inc.
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