MMRGlobal CEO on the Road for Requested Product and Licensing Presentations Following HIMSS13
LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwire - Mar 18, 2013) - MMRGlobal, Inc. (OTCQB: MMRF) Chairman and CEO Robert H. Lorsch, returning from the 2013 HIMSS Conference in New Orleans, March 3-7, said that patents and patients are clearly the stars of health IT going into Stage 2 of Meaningful Use. As a result of overwhelming interest in licensing and reselling the Company's patented technologies and intellectual property, and requests for meetings and presentations, Lorsch will be traveling to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., New York, Kansas City, Missouri and Chicago starting tomorrow for licensing, strategic partnership and settlement meetings with hospitals, healthcare vendors and others. Lorsch said that HIMSS was an extraordinary event for the Company, with hospital administrators, chief technology officers, payers and vendors who had read about the MMR Patent Portfolio visiting MMRGlobal's booth with Personal Health Records on their shopping list.
"HIMSS demonstrated that hospitals and vendors are interested in purchasing services for improved patient engagement and investment bankers and private equity groups are looking to acquire companies that provide products and services for patient interaction. As evidenced by more than half a billion dollars in publicized deal flow announced at the show, there is great interest in buying, selling, acquiring or investing in any company that offers tools for the patient, especially if it involves a Personal Health Record," said Lorsch.
In his March 7th closing day keynote address at HIMSS13, Farzad Mostashari, M.D., National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, addressed the importance of patient access to protected health information and specifically Personal Health Records. Dr. Mostashari stated that ONC (Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology) would find ways to make it more profitable to share than hoard a patient's Personal Health Record, and that no one should hold patient data hostage to prevent them from easy access to services at other providers.
Since inception, MMRGlobal has been in the business of offering its free flowing, easy-to-use patented technologies to empower patients to have timely access to all their personal health information and other important documents, regardless of the technology or infrastructure where it is stored. In his remarks, Dr. Mostashari expressed dismay that so many vendors and providers don't understand the final 2014 EHR standards providing that patients must be more involved in their care and providers must provide patients with their data. He stated that there would be no more "I cannot give you your medical records because of HIPAA."
Patents and intellectual property belonging to health IT vendors were in the news on the first day of HIMSS, starting with an article titled, "Patent Wars Heat Up and Cool Down at #HIMSS13." The story included McKesson Corporation and Epic announcing a settlement of their longstanding patent infringement case. Based on that announcement, the media converged on MMRGlobal and MMR's extensive health IT patent portfolio and its possible relevance to the market.
MMR's patent portfolio includes seven U.S. patents as well as patents issued, pending and applied for in additional countries of commercial interest including Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Mexico, Japan, Canada, Hong Kong, South Korea, Israel, and Europe nations. The patent article referred to above explains the MMR patents that are integrated into the Company's existing products and services, which include Personal Health Records, Patient Portals and other Electronic Medical Record systems with strategic partners (http://blog.mmrglobal.com/). In the U.S., MMR's patents are covered through U.S. Patent Nos. 8,352,287; 8,121,855; 8,117,646; 8,117,045; 8,301,466; 8,321,240; and 8,352,288, and there are additional applications and continuation applications with nearly 400 claims. The Company's patent portfolio also contains claims directed to Web-based services that provide access to and collection of health records from service providers, including, but not limited to, retail pharmacies and laboratory systems as well as hospitals, physicians and other healthcare professionals, using email, facsimile, file upload and/or voice.
Also on the first day of HIMSS, underscoring the focus of PHRs, Allscripts, athenahealth, Cerner, Greenway, McKesson and RelayHealth announced the CommonWell™ Health Alliance, a partnership where they were all joining together for a single purpose of improving the quality of care delivery while working to lower costs for care providers, patients and the industry as a whole. Through CommonWell, patients trigger data liquidity between all the member systems, based on "Patient Authorizations," which are a centerpiece to MMR's underlying intellectual property.
The MMR patent portfolio was featured in a Special Report dated January 22, 2013 (http://michaelbass.com/PDF/Patent_Valuation.pdf), published by the Michael Bass Research Group on the Personal Health Records market, with particular emphasis on MMRGlobal's MyMedicalRecords health information technology global patent portfolio which at that time did not include issuances in Japan or Canada. According to the analysis, the report included a valuation of the Company's U.S. patents of between $600 million to $1.1 billion based on what is described as conservative estimates and that the market will reach a projected GDP value of $19 billion.
About MMRGlobal, Inc.
MMRGlobal, Inc., through its wholly-owned operating subsidiary, MyMedicalRecords, Inc., provides secure and easy-to-use online Personal Health Records ("PHRs") and electronic safe deposit box storage solutions, serving consumers, healthcare professionals, employers, insurance companies, financial institutions, and professional organizations and affinity groups. The MyMedicalRecords PHR enables individuals and families to access their medical records and other important documents, such as birth certificates, passports, insurance policies and wills, anytime from anywhere using the Internet. MyMedicalRecords is built on proprietary, patented technologies to allow documents, images and voicemail messages to be transmitted and stored in the system using a variety of methods, including fax, phone, or file upload without relying on any specific electronic medical record platform to populate a user's account. The Company's professional offering, MMRPro, is designed to give physicians' offices an easy and cost-effective solution to digitizing paper-based medical records and sharing them with patients in real time through an integrated patient portal. MMR is an Independent Software Vendor Partner with Kodak to deliver an integrated turnkey EMR solution for healthcare professionals. Through its merger with Favrille, Inc. in January 2009, the Company acquired intellectual property biotech assets that include anti-CD20 antibodies and data and samples from its FavId™/Specifid™ vaccine clinical trials for the treatment of B-Cell Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. To learn more about MMRGlobal, Inc. visit www.mmrglobal.com. View demos and video tutorials of the Company's products and services at www.mmrtheater.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
All statements in this press release that are not strictly historical in nature, including, without limitation, intellectual property licenses, potential intellectual property enforcement actions, infringement claims or litigation, and future performance, management's expectations, beliefs, intentions, estimates or projections, constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results to be materially different from historical results or from any results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Some can be identified by the use of words (and their derivations) such as "need," "possibility," "potential," "intend," "offer," "development," "if," "negotiate," "when," "begun," "believe," "achieve," "will," "estimate," "expect," "maintain," "plan," and "continue," or the negative of these words. Actual outcomes of intellectual property enforcement actions, infringement claims, litigation or licensing transactions, results of operations and the timing of selected events may differ materially from the results predicted, and any reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. Such statements are necessarily based on assumptions and estimates and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those relating to the possible invalidity of the underlying assumptions and estimates and possible changes or developments in economic, business, industry, market, legal and regulatory circumstances and conditions and actions taken or omitted to be taken by third parties, including customers, suppliers, business partners, potential licensees, competitors and legislative, judicial and other governmental authorities and officials. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: unexpected outcomes with respect to intellectual property enforcement actions, claims of intellectual property infringement and general intellectual property litigation; our ability to maintain, develop, monetize and protect our patent portfolio for both the Company's health IT and biotechnology intellectual property assets in the U.S. and internationally; the timing of milestone payments in connection with licensing our intellectual property; our ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships; changes in our relationships with our licensees; the risk the Company's products are not adopted or viewed favorably by the healthcare community and consumer retail market; business prospects, results of operations or financial condition; risks related to the current uncertainty and instability in financial and lending markets, including global economic uncertainties; the timing and volume of sales and installations; the length of sales cycles and the installation process; the market's acceptance of new product and service introductions; competitive product offerings and promotions; changes in government laws and regulations including the 2009 HITECH Act and changes in Meaningful Use and the 2010 Affordable Care Act; future changes in tax legislation and initiatives in the healthcare industry; undetected errors in our products; the possibility of interruption at our data centers; risks related to third party vendors; risks related to obtaining and integrating third-party licensed technology; risks related to a security breach by third parties; risks associated with recruitment and retention of key personnel; other litigation matters; uncertainties associated with doing business internationally across borders and territories; and additional risks discussed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including disclosures about the Company's relationship with the Michael Bass Group since 2009. The Company is providing this information as of the date of this release and, except as required by applicable law, does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
