This educational initiative will create asthma-specific sites and disease management tools on medscape.com and cbshealthwatch.com, two websites produced by Medscape. Healthcare information will be tailored to patients and physicians with the goal of increasing awareness and management of asthma. This agreement for Medscape and a pharmaceutical partner represents a new opportunity for the company to generate revenue through disease-specific educational and data initiatives.
Under the agreement, Medscape will expand its current respiratory and asthma channels on medscape.com and cbshealthwatch.com, respectively. The CBS HealthWatch by Medscape website will now include four new Asthma Health Zones: Asthma and Your Environment, Therapies for Asthma, Exercise and Asthma, and Children and Asthma. Glaxo Wellcome will sponsor an Asthma Resource Center on medscape.com, which will feature asthma-specific journal articles, journal scans, MEDLINE searches, practice guidelines, conference summaries, and treatment options.
Glaxo Wellcome will be the sole sponsor of the medscape.com Asthma Resource Center and a partial sponsor of the asthma channel on the cbshealthwatch.com site.
Medscape will provide Glaxo Wellcome with aggregate, anonymous consumer data that Medscape has received permission to access. Aggregate data will include disease management statistics from which identifying information has been removed. This information will allow Glaxo Wellcome to analyze the impact of the company’s iBreathe.com sites for asthma. All sensitive data will be encrypted to ensure privacy. The agreement also includes specific language in support of Medscape’s commitment to self-regulatory systems such as the Hi-Ethics Principles.
This is an important milestone for Medscape, said David Moffenbeier, CEO of Medscape in a press release. By providing the pharmaceutical industry with aggregated statistical data on disease management, we have identified a robust revenue stream which allows the company to maintain its ethical integrity and the privacy of its users. We look forward to similar agreements with other pharmaceutical partners in 2001.
Specific details of the 12-month agreement were not disclosed; however, the agreement provides for a fee and installments based on the number of visitors from the Medscape portals to the proprietary iBreathe.com site. Medscape will promote the sites on CBS television and radio as well as on- and off-line direct-to-consumer advertising campaigns. The sites are scheduled to go live in early 2001.
