According to figures published by Jupiter Research, 105 million people trawled the Internet in search of health-related information in 2006, but just 16% were satisfied with the results. New Herzliya-based web-technology start-up iMedix Inc. caters for those 88 million people who didn't find what they were looking for.
iMedix was founded in 2007 by CEO Amir Leitersdorf, and president and CMO Iri Amirav, with the goal of "changing the way people make decisions about their health, and bridging the enormous divide between patients and the vast amount of medical information available online," says Leitersdorf. iMedix's offering combines a health information search engine and an interactive communications platform for users.
One of the unique attributes of iMedix's search engine is the power exercised by users. People using the site rate the information their search has returned according to its level of usefulness, so that results which were irrelevant, unreliable, or which contained purely marketing content, will no longer appear in subsequent searches. Amirav insists that the company will not allow marketing content to take over its search engine. "Allowing ourselves to be flooded by spam would be like shooting ourselves in the foot," he says.
Another unique characteristic of iMedix's search engine is the social interaction it offers. The engine matches people who suffer from similar conditions and allows them to chat with each other in real time. 50,000 surfers, who heard about the engine through word of mouth, used it in November. The number of registered users is believed to total several thousand, a substantial quantity, given that the beta version of the engine has only just been launched.
iMedix's revenue model is based on advertising, with most of the advertisements posted, naturally, by drug companies, insurance providers, and healthcare organizations, which can offer surfers treatment or services suited to their specific conditions. According to research conducted by eMarket Services, drug companies and healthcare organizations in the US will spend $1.4 billion on online advertising, and iMedix could be an ideal platform for them.
Leitersdorf and Amirav believe their market has considerable potential. According to them, the market for web-based consumer-focused medical literature has soared from $12 million in 1996 to $4.1 billion in 2006. Government spending on healthcare in the US is expected to reach $4 trillion in 2015, 20% of the country's GDP.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on December 12, 2007
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2007