The Ropart Asset Management Funds is a private equity firm that invests directly in small to midsize companies. The firm pursues a flexible strategy, investing throughout the capital structure and in multiple industries, including Business Services, Healthcare Services, Consumer Products, Financial Services, and Technology.

OfficeWorks  is a leading regional provider of financial, administrative. clinical personnel and Allied personnel to the Healthcare Industry.

Ephraim Barsam, CEO  of  Three other portfolio companies Nurses in Partnership, Health Talent and Tech Group (“TGI”), will become CEO of Healthcare Staffing Partnership. They have also appointed someone to head up their M&A team.. Barsam said: “ After we completed the acquisition of TGI” which is a major Allied Healthcare Staffing Company, we felt that there were many opportunities to acquire in the Healthcare Staffing space. We intend to aggressively invest in and acquire other healthcare staffing  companies to become part of our group. Among other things, we expect to offer second chances to those hit by the recession.”

De Bellas & Co. is the #1 investment banking firm in advising on mergers and acquisitions in the Staffing Industry.

Contacts:

Healthcare Staffing Partnership:    

Ephraim Barsam – EBarsam@nipinc.com

Ropart Asset Management:             

William Schlueter – William@ropart.com

De Bellas & Co:                                       

Alfred De Bellas – adebellas@debellas.com

Leading Performance Marketing Company Reorganizes and Strengthens Financial Structure Following Bardon Advisors Acquisition

NEW YORK – (May 10, 2010) – MediaTrust, a leading digital performance marketing company based in New York City, has executed an $18.8 million recapitalization led by Ropart Asset Management Funds of Greenwich, CT. The announcement follows the recent acquisition by MediaTrust of Bardon Advisors, a leading Los Angeles-based Cost Per Click (CPC) search and affiliate marketing platform for online advertisers and publishers.

“This funding combined with the recapitalization strengthens our balance sheet, enables us to effectively combine the resources of our two companies, and provides the resources to build an even more robust platform for online direct response advertisers,” said Peter Bordes, CEO of MediaTrust. “We are now in a better position to invest in future innovation, and capitalize upon partnerships and market opportunities as they develop.”

MediaTrust’s management team, including the recent addition of Bardon CEO Keith Cohn as President, will remain unchanged.

Todd A. Goergen, Managing Partner of the Ropart Asset Management Funds, stated of the deal: “We continue to strongly support our investment in MediaTrust. The firm has forged ahead as a leader despite these tough macro-economic conditions, showing the strength of its platform-centric approach to performance marketing. With its scalable business model, strong relationships, and experienced management team, MediaTrust is extremely well positioned . We look forward to the future success of the combined resources of MediaTrust and Bardon Advisors.”

MediaTrust, the ninth fastest growing company in the U.S. according to Inc. Magazine, recently acquired Bardon Advisors, making it the first company to offer advertisers Cost per Click (CPC), Cost Per Lead (CPL) and Cost Per Action (CPA) online advertising programs through a primarily self-service performance marketing platform.

About MediaTrust
MediaTrust makes pay-for-results online advertising easier. MediaTrust offers an innovative online technology platform, supported by best-in-class service, and access to the best direct response advertisers and affiliate publishers in the industry. MediaTrust enables its publisher and advertiser partners to easily create and deploy pay-for-performance marketing campaigns that deliver leads and sales. In 2009, the Company was ranked 9th fastest growing U.S. Company by Inc. Magazine. Founded in 2004, MediaTrust is headquartered in New York City with offices in Los Angeles, Toronto, and Santa Barbara.

By Jim O’Neill

Created 04/20/2010 – 10:26

Ooyala CEO Jay Fulcher is a happy man. And why not? His company has just reported record revenue growth for the first quarter [1], with 300 percent growth year-over-year. It’s expanding into Europe, Latin America, South America, Australia and Japan (where it’s just launched a Japanese-language platform). And, it’s created a dust up with its chief rival-Brightcove, which accused Ooyala of spreading misinformation about the security of Brightcove’s platform to its customers. Fulcher, with a grin, waves his hand and dismisses Brightcove’s annoyance as, essentially, “a lot of drama.”

Ooyala is riding high, he told FierceOnlineVideo at the NAB show in Las Vegas. By May 1, he says, Ooyala should top 500 customers, not bad for a start-up that just began selling a commercially viable product 16 months ago. Among the new clients:  The United Football League, Yelp, Caracol Broadcast Channel, Hearst, LiveStrong Foundation, Telegraph Media Group, Esurance, Rowdy.com, Business Insider, GigaOm, StrikeForce, Deca TV and General Mills. Ooyala also has aggressively jumped into the TV Everywhere landscape, scoring a big win there with a major broadcaster.

Those are milestones, Fulcher says, on which the company isn’t planning to dwell. With more than five dozen online video platforms fighting tooth and nail for each customer in the crowded marketplace, looking at where you’ve been isn’t much of a plan, Fulcher says; it’s all about where you’re going. For much of the segment, Fulcher says, the next year will be pivotal. He’s predicting at least half the companies will shut their doors as VC tightens, a function of a maturing industry and the rise of several leaders, Ooyala being one of them.

What’s the market for OVPs looking like in the next nine months?

There are still some companies out there that are over funded, but don’t have the long-term future they once did. Many of them, frankly, are coming to us as potential aggregators, and we may or may not be interested in some of those players.

We’re not sure that we perceive ourselves as a buyer that’s mostly interested in either technology or customers or revenue and we still think time’s on our side because a lot of these businesses are ones that probably aren’t long term all that viable and so we think the price point can be very advantageous to our shareholders.

How’s Ooyala situated?

The last six months has been a really, really intense time of growth and expansion for us. We’re excited about that; we’re doing that not only through our own organic efforts in terms of employees and in terms of broader organizational dimension, but also in terms of our partners. We have 500 customers, and those customers are now serving video in more than 110 countries around the world; we’ve gotten some scale here relatively quickly. The way in which we built both the architecture of the product is allowing us to be very capital efficient, which is a bit of a differentiator from some of the guys we compete with.

And, we’re excited about the Microsoft work we’re doing with Silverlight, and they really seem to be leaning into our relationship. Some of that, I think, is a bit more evidence that, maybe, we’re no longer perceived as “that upstart,” that we once were.

I think we’re well on our way now to being a company that’s going to have the size and scale that’s going to be necessary to be a leader in the space.

What kind of role will Ooyala play in TV Everywhere?

We see TV Everywhere as being more of the uber-concept of what TV Everywhere might be, not necessarily as what Comcast might see it as. To us, it’s really about how do you go from on air to online and on demand. That transition is really the thing that we want to be able to fuel for our customers. That’s a pretty transformational thing for those clients because the revenue model and the underlying business models are really different from what they are comfortable with.

Will consumers be willing to pay for content they can already get free online? Or are telcos and cable companies likely to become “semi-dumb pipes” that transport content with less control over it?

We totally agree with that and that premise has actually fueled the approach that we’ve taken. We’ve built an experimentation framework that allows us to help broadcasters experiment with what’s the right revenue model going to be for a particular piece of content; whether it should be pay-per-view, or subscription, or video on demand, or have a completely authenticated pay wall. It’s going to take, we think, an iterative, on-going process of experimentation to figure out what kind of content is best monetized what way.

If you want a richer experience then, there are other ways to kind of monetize it?

Right. This notion of kind of an iterative, experimental, process we think is the right sort of thing. And we’ve started charting that out to not only the broadcasters we have today, but to the ones that we’re engaged with. One of the things that we’re excited about is that we’re taking to basically every major broadcaster in the world. It’s not like those guys don’t have a video player on their site, they do, but they don’t have the deep analytics we do, they don’t have the monetization tools we do, they–in many ways–don’t have the syndication capabilities that we built into our platform, and that’s really gotten them focused on Ooyala.

Speaking on analytics, how do, say, Akami’s analytics play into Ooyala’s? How do they compliment yours?

Akamai does a good job of providing somewhat generic web-based analytics to customers, but we go to the next level to actionable information that a customer can use to make a decision. It’s nice to know how effective the pipe is working, that’s interesting, but it isn’t necessarily something a customer can do anything with. And, we don’t think it’s differentiable, because, quite frankly, anyone can-and many of us already do-use it in one form or another.

What we try to do is be complimentary with what any of the CDNs–not just Akamai–serve up by helping the customer understand how their video is being consumed, or some of the dynamics around the nuances of that consumption that they can do something about, like pricing.

In the instance of taking a bit of a more progressive example of a pay wall, for example, we did a pretty big project for a broadcaster where we were putting up an authenticated pay wall around a family of shows. That will help them figure out what to price that content for, how many times to show it for that price, over the course of how many days, what other kind of information might they want to gather around gender and then advertise specifically toward individual viewers. Those are they type of things we think are deeper and more interesting and more meaningful about our approach.

More personalizing of video?

Exactly. We think it’s the highest order of the value proposition. For the content publishers, personalization is all around making sure that they are taking that content and doing the best job with the individual to make sure that the engagement of that content is maximized, because that typically means that they are going to make the most money as a result of that. But personalization to the consumer is all about “I want to see what I want to see, when I want to see it, and I want to see it on the device that I want to see it on, my iPhone, my iPad, my laptop, in the living room. So again, it’s that entire ubiquitous experience that is what we’re trying to provide.

How do you develop customer loyalty in a market that traditionally doesn’t have a lot of it? Where big customers routinely jump from OVP to OVP?

That’s certainly been true up until now… not only are there companies flipping in and out, different attempts to work with different companies, but in some cases, too, my God, how many OVPs can claim the same companies as a customer?

I know that when some of the visible Brightcove defections came out–especially like the Telegraph–I know Jeremy was out in the market talking about how they took EA from us. That’s actually not true. Brightcove has gotten into the habit of giving their product away for free. EA has both products running side by side, in the same way that a company like EA may have Cisco and Juniper running side by side, or IBM and HP running side by side. I’m not happy about it necessarily, but I also know that sometimes free can be a powerful weapon, typically for a very short amount of time and it’s not necessarily very sustainable.

In the last three or four months, we have dozens of examples where we won customers and won business versus free; customers see that you get what you pay for. In this space, customers are concerned about innovation and rapport and about who they’re working with and how reliable the company is. We haven’t had a lot of customer defections, despite attempts by other companies to take them. 

I wouldn’t say that we’re not under attack–I think we are. And I’ve told the company it’s really a good thing; it’s a sign that we are now considered the leader in this segment. We’re certainly the leader from an innovation and technology perspective and I think that–at the end of the day–it’s going to be hard for someone to compete with us just on price.

I’m not willing to lose money to win a customer. It’s not good for the category. When this concept of free comes up-I have a favorite line, and I can’t claim it’s original, but, it’s, ‘Well, there’s free beer and there’s free puppies. Free beer-that’s a good thing. Free puppies, maybe not so good.” I think savvy customers see through that.

There are 60-plus OVPs. How many don’t survive until the end of the year?

Half. The VCs are starting to see it’s game, set, match for at least who the top two or three players are. When that starts to coalesce, the money to go attack those companies-it doesn’t completely go away-but it’s radically different. I think half are out of business and maybe that’s probably too conservative.

Who’s the biggest casualty?

Big is relative, because big isn’t all that big.

Who’s the one you’d like most to go out?

You can fill in the blank. I shouldn’t really name somebody that I’d like to go out of business. I will tell you–and this is a very genuine thing–I’m rooting for Brightcove to do well, because this space needs a couple of healthy companies. So, I’d like to see them not raise more money, be more capital efficient, be more innovating. It’d be better for customers, better for Brightcove, and I think it would be better for Ooyala. Now, I’m not running that company, so I don’t have to worry about it.

I think that with some of the other payers, I think that the Delve Networks of the world, I think the Kalturas, some of those kind of businesses, I think they have a tough row to hoe ahead of them. It’s a tough row to hoe. They all have their individually issues in place which make their situations not easy. But it’s not easy for any of us, so…

Do you think CDNs are likely to-because their market is so competitive-add on services, services that might include an OVP?

CDNs definitely have to continue to think about how to continue to be strategic to their customers to the degree they can be and for sure there has been a lot of margin pressure on those guys over the last four or five years. Some have handled it a little better than others. I know that they’re all trying to figure out how best to offer other services, other capabilities to sort of defy gravity a little bit in terms of the margins. Whether or not it’s a natural fit for them to be in the OVP space, I’m not convinced it’s as natural for them as it is for a number of other companies who have a vested agenda in this space. So that’s going to be another factor in how this space coalesces over the next few years.

Google buying Episodic… surprised?

Not really at all. I think that Google has had an interest in turning YouTube from a destination site to a syndication hub. Over time they want more professional content onto YouTube. Today, they’re not in a position to do that; post the Episodic acquisition they’re still not in a position to do that, but it’s a first step.

Google is constantly trying to figure out buy, build or partner. They’re a little unusual because they’re not so interested in customer or revenue, they’re more interested in technology and engineers and innovation.

Episodic just happens to be a little bit of a half step on their way. The revenues are relatively minor, the amount of customers is very minor, and officially, Ooyala really likes the Episodic guys. We know them, and spent some time with them.

Was their sort of a collective groan when you heard it was Episodic and not Ooyala that Google had tapped?

A collective groan, I think, is overstating it. The quick sound bite in that is that we think time is on our side. Our business is getting more valuable every week, every month, every quarter. And, over time there are not just one, but several quality companies of that size who have an interest in this space. So, at the end of the day, there’s lots of options for us.

The best option is the one we’re focused on; we think we’ve got a more and more valuable independent company that we think we can continue to grow and develop. We’re going to continue to have a really good relationship with Google, in the same way that we do with Adobe and Microsoft and Cisco and any number of other companies.

Speaking of YouTube, what’s next for it?

The YouTube that Card Hurley founded is giving way to the YouTube I think that is the second generation within Google, and they’re starting to be focused on other things. They’re starting to experiment with, “So, how do we start to put some of that skill set and experience and background into the company and be able to get there.”

Take it from something entertaining to something functional?

Yeah, like I said, the destination site-there’s nothing wrong with that, when you have 40 percent of the video market-but eventually when I think they would like to hook their already world-class monetization engine to the professional content so that they could monetize it more easily.

So when Google lights up all of its dark fiber, what happens in the industry?

I’m probably not smart enough to give you all the implications of that.

It’s dominoes isn’t it?

Yeah, it is. It is. In some ways I think, and I think that Eric and others have made it clear that they’re going to set the pace for how a lot of companies, including some of their competitors, have to think about what’s going on in the market. I think that makes the market better, it makes the ability to deliver what customers want a  lot better and, so I’ll be curious to see how it comes out.

What’s with Ooyala and Brightcove? They were really angry at how the recent security brouhaha went over.

They were. And I think the one thing that’s unfortunate is that their marketing spin cycle tended to sort of convey this somehow that we were reckless or irresponsible in what we did. To set the record straight: We did not go broadly to their customer base. We went to some customers who were looking to flip Brightcove out for Ooyala, we went to some customers who had Ooyala and Brightcove side by side running in their shop, and we went to at least one customer who was a current Brightcove customer who was engaged with us and was starting to ask some questions about security specifically. And, I’m talking about a handful of clients, not their client base, as sort of was alleged. I don’t think that not only is that not irresponsible, I think that’s very responsible for us to point some of that out.

We also knew, absolutely, that that would immediately go directly to Brightcove and that they would need to react and they should. So we don’t really make any apologies for the process. In hindsight I think that just in terms of all the drama-which I think in some ways was cultivated-we definitely could have, maybe just gone to them simultaneous to make sure they were aware. And I think that in the future, that’s what we’ll do, just so there’s no question about what our intent is.

We do think there are some major points of differentiation between our approach and theirs. In general, what this really exposes is that we’ve made a lot of progress as a company over the past year, I don’t think anyone is confused about at whose expense we’ve made that progress, and I think they’re smarting from it.

What are Ooyala’s goals for the remainder of the year?

We’re going to grow the company substantially year-over-year. We are more of less on schedule on the stated plan that we built back in the winter of 2009. We start to get into some big milestones, 500 and beyond customers and the expansion of where those customers are physically located. This year we’re excited about that we are in a financially very self-sufficient position. We raised some money late last year, we’ve been really capital efficient and have been very careful in how we utilize our resources. It’ll be interesting to see just how quickly we arrive at a point of profitability… which really gives us ample opportunity to decide if we are going to raise more money, maybe not. That’s really our goal this year, to be in a position to have those choices.

We’re kind of delighted with where we are right now, with our traction and our momentum. Along the way, there are going to be some guys who take some shots at you but usually, that’s probably a pretty good sign.

“We are very pleased to add David Carr to our board,” said Rodger Smith, CEO at SolutionX. “His background running large software development projects and growing small companies while implementing and improving business processes is exactly what SolutionX needs to get to the next level.”

“I continue to be impressed with the SolutionX software platform, business model, and industry thought leadership,” said David Carr. “It is an honor to join the board of directors and apply my experience and knowledge to help map out the future of this exciting company and execute its vision.”

Carr brings his extensive IT and Operations experience and 15 year track record of strong leadership, operational and financial results to the growing SolutionX.

Carr joins Rodger Smith (CEO), Todd A. Goergen (Chairman), Scott Shields (President), Jonathan Shapiro (CFO) and Ryan Blair (CEO at ViSalus), on this diverse and dynamic board of directors.

Many global businesses and distributors rely on SolutionX websites and tools every day. Avon, MonaVie, Tupperware, XanGo, ViSalus, Nu Skin, Neways, Melaleuca, Tahitian Noni and others have put their trust in SolutionX software. SolutionX website platforms currently have more than 500,000 subscribers.

The SolutionX software pedigree includes the introduction of the first completely browser-based, point-and-click website creation technology in 1997, the first replicate website platform for the industry in 1998 and the reinvention of marketing for home businesses with the MyMangosteen.com system in 2002. Today, SolutionX continues its tradition of innovation with the revolutionary Unity platform—a social network integrated with replicate website front and back offices. Visit www.solutionx.com for more information.

Press Contact:

Brett Merritt

PR/Marketing Team Member

801-224-4444 ext. 283

 brett@solutionx.com

Media Contact:

Ali Croft

Just Drive Media

(510) 932-1878

ali@justdrivemedia.com

MediaTrust, No. 9 on Inc. 500, Acquires Bardon Advisors,

Names Bardon Founder & CEO Keith Cohn as President 

Leading Performance Marketing Company Expands Platform via Acquisition of Robust Sponsored Search Marketing and CPC Network to Enable Advertisers To Pay Per Click in Addition to Paying Per Lead or Sale

NEW YORK / LOS ANGELES—(April 26, 2010)— MediaTrust, the New York-based digital performance marketing company, has acquired Bardon Advisors, a leading Los Angeles-based Cost Per Click (CPC) search & affiliate marketing platform for online advertisers and publishers. The acquisition brings high-quality traffic generation capabilities to advertisers using MediaTrust’s performance marketing platform, which helps advertisers connect impressions to performance with Cost per Click (CPC), Cost Per Lead (CPL) and Cost Per Action (CPA) advertising programs. The acquisition includes more than 1200 owned and operated web properties and extends the platform’s reach by more than 20 million monthly unique visits and ~5 million paid searches per month.

Concurrent with the acquisition, Bardon Founder & CEO and industry veteran Keith Cohn has joined MediaTrust as President of the combined entity. Cohn will be focused on leading MediaTrust through its next stage of growth, expanding its offerings and helping to further establish its foothold as the leading global performance marketing platform.

“Under Keith’s leadership, Bardon Advisors has quietly become an industry leader in all things cost per click – from search engine marketing to content ad networks to affiliate marketing,” said Peter Bordes, CEO of MediaTrust.  “Bardon’s technology and expertise will further expand and diversify the MediaTrust platform’s existing CPA, CPL and conversion marketing offerings for brands, agencies, and affiliate publishers, as well as open the door for future performance marketing innovations.”

Cohn comes to MediaTrust with more than 20 years of leadership experience, building brands and businesses for start-ups and large established companies. Prior to launching Bardon Advisors, Cohn was President and CEO of Vendare Media, an Idealab & venture-backed Internet advertising and media firm. From 2000 to 2006, he led Vendare Media from a pre-revenue, fledgling Internet start-up into a $120mm a year diversified marketing firm with an emphasis on lead generation and other forms of performance- based marketing. Vendare Media merged with Net Blue (re-named Conexxus, which recently merged with Azoogle / Epic Advertising.)

“MediaTrust is paving the way for the future of online advertising, by setting the standard for quality and trust as the leading digital performance marketing platform,” said Cohn. “I’m thrilled to be joining such a forward-thinking team and look forward to working to deliver the best possible performance and technology to our advertiser and publisher partners.”

Bardon Advisors’ office in Los Angeles and New York will be merged with MediaTrust’s existing facilities in those markets, providing a greater presence in those two key media and advertising locations.

MediaTrust offers a diverse set of services for advertisers and publishers working with performance-based online advertising campaigns. The company’s proprietary pay-for-results platform supports campaigns using display advertising, paid search, social media, and e-mail, and includes a network of vetted, trusted publishers to ensure the highest quality results. Combined with the newly acquired Bardon CPC advertising solutions, the MediaTrust digital marketing platform will enable advertisers to setup, track, manage and maximize value from all models of performance-based campaigns, all via a single login.

About MediaTrust

MediaTrust makes pay-for-results online advertising easier. MediaTrust offers an innovative online technology platform, supported by best-in-class service, and access to the best direct response advertisers and affiliate publishers in the industry. MediaTrust enables its publisher and advertiser partners to easily create and deploy pay-for-performance marketing campaigns that deliver leads and sales. In 2009, the Company was ranked 9th fastest growing U.S. Company by Inc. Magazine and the number one performance marketing network on mThink’s online advertising Blue Book list. Founded in 2004, MediaTrust is headquartered in New York City with offices in Los Angeles, Toronto, and Santa Barbara.

For more information on MediaTrust’s pay-for-results advertising and publishing solutions, please visit: www.mediatrust.com, or follow the company blog: blog.mediatrust.com, or call 1-877-987-8785. MediaTrust news and updates can also be found on Twitter (@MediaTrust) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/mediatrust).

###

June 24, 2009

By ANDREW POLLACK

A small biotechnology company facing possible bankruptcy and liquidation has been awarded a $35 million federal contract to develop a faster way to make vaccines for pandemic influenza.

The award of the contract to the Protein Sciences Corporation of

Meriden, Conn., was announced on Tuesday by the Department of Health and Human Services. But only a day earlier, creditors filed a petition in federal bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Del., seeking to force Protein Sciences into bankruptcy and liquidation, saying they were owed $11.7 million.

Almost all of that money is owed to Emergent BioSolutions, a vaccine company in Rockville, Md., that lent Protein Sciences $10 million last year in advance of the pending acquisition of virtually all the assets of Protein Sciences by Emergent. The acquisition deal fell apart, and Emergent sued Protein Sciences and its top executives, accusing them of fraud and breach of agreements.

The series of events raises questions about whether the government is entrusting part of the nation’s influenza defense to a financially shaky or untrustworthy company. Conversely, the award of the contract could put

Emergent into an uncomfortable light for trying to force into bankruptcy a company with promising vaccine technology.

Robin Robinson, director of the branch of Health and Human Services that will administer the contract, said the government had spent months doing “two very thorough financial audits” of Protein Sciences. “It was determined that they were healthy enough to go forward with development of this vaccine,” he said.

Health authorities are scrambling to come up with enough vaccine to protect the world’s population against the recently declared pandemic of swine flu, which has killed more than 230 people worldwide and sickened more than 52,000. They are worried that the death toll from the strain might rise sharply this winter.

“I can’t imagine what legitimate purpose can be served by trying to close the company,” Daniel D. Adams, the chief executive of Protein Sciences, said in an interview on Tuesday. Mr. Adams said that Emergent’s suit was without merit and that its actions were making it difficult for Protein Sciences to attract new investors.

But Daniel J. Abdun-Nabi, president and chief operating officer of Emergent, said that bankruptcy “doesn’t destroy the product, and it doesn’t destroy the technology.” It might result in the technology’s being sold to a stronger company, like his own or others, he said. Emergent, which makes the anthrax vaccine used by the armed forces, says it has been more than patient in giving Protein Sciences a chance to pay back the loan.

Protein Sciences is one of several small companies trying to make influenza vaccines by methods that are faster than growing them in chicken eggs, the technique now generally used. Instead of growing whole viruses, Protein Sciences produces just a protein from the virus and it does so in genetically modified insect cells.

The company, which is privately held, has already applied to the Food and Drug Administration for approval of a seasonal flu vaccine. And last week, Mr. Adams said, the company made its first 100,000 doses of a vaccine against the new swine flu.

The federal contract will help Protein Sciences develop its technology and obtain F.D.A. approval. It can be extended up to five years for a total cost of $147 million.

If the technology is proved safe and effective and is licensed by the F.D.A, the contract calls for Protein Sciences to establish domestic manufacturing capacity, to provide a finished vaccine within 12 weeks of the onset of a pandemic and to produce at least 50 million doses of a pandemic flu vaccine within six months.

Mr. Robinson of Health and Human Services said that for the current pandemic, the Protein Sciences vaccine might be used as a backup to those being supplied by larger companies.

“The technology has advanced in recent years to a point that we believe it could help meet a surge in demand for U.S.-based vaccine for seasonal and pandemic flu,” Secretary Sebelius said. “We want to use the technology to help our nation respond to emerging infectious diseases.”

With this new technology, known as recombinant influenza vaccine, a gene would be extracted from a flu virus and placed into an insect virus called baculovirus, which does not affect people and can multiply quickly to high levels in insect cells. The cells are purified to become a basic part of a human vaccine.

Using this method, vaccine candidates, clinical investigational lots, and commercial-scale vaccine production may be available faster than by using traditional vaccine production methods. Because the basic cells can be frozen and stored indefinitely, manufacturing large quantities of a vaccine is also faster using this recombinant technology.

The new contract will be administered by the Office of Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) within HHS and will support Protein Sciences Corporation, Inc., in advanced development activities needed for potential Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to use this new technology for producing flu vaccines.

If this new technology is demonstrated to be safe and effective and the FDA licenses the new technology for flu vaccines, the contract requires the company to establish domestic manufacturing capability to provide a finished vaccine within 12 weeks of pandemic onset and to produce at least 50 million doses of pandemic flu vaccine within six months of pandemic onset.

Today’s award aligns with the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan, which calls on HHS to develop and procure medical countermeasures for pandemic influenza or for potentially pandemic strains, such as the recent novel H1N1 flu virus.

To learn more about the HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response and BARDA, visit http://www.hhs.gov/aspr/barda. The National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan can be found at http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/federal/.

Source: HHS

Jun 23, 2009

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A US company that was awarded a 35-million-dollar contract to develop an influenza vaccine using insect cell technology has produced a first batch against (A)H1N1 flu, company boss Dan Adams said.

“We turned out our first batch of doses — about 100,000 — against (A)H1N1 flu last week and we’re continuing to manufacture it,” Adams, chief executive officer of Connecticut-based Protein Sciences Corporation, told AFP.

The US Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday announced that it has awarded a 35-million-dollar contract to Protein Sciences, which could be extended for another five years to reach 147 million dollars.

The insect cell technology “has advanced in recent years to a point that we believe it could help meet a surge in demand for US-based vaccine for seasonal and pandemic flu,” Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.

A(H1N1), or swine flu, which emerged in Mexico in April, has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, killing 231 people worldwide and infecting more than 52,000 people in 100 countries.

As the novel strain of swine flu spread, scientists around the world scrambled to develop a seed strain, a necessary first step in developing a vaccine using either chicken eggs or mammalian cells — the way most vaccines are produced.

They warned that the virus could mutate during the southern hemisphere’s flu season before returning north in a more lethal form in autumn, in a pattern similar to that seen in the deadly 1918 flu pandemic, which claimed an estimated 20 to 50 million lives around the globe.

Protein Sciences makes flu vaccine by infecting caterpillar cells with a baculovirus carrying the gene for hemagluttinin, a molecule that sticks out of the surface of the influenza virus.

“Using this method, vaccine candidates, clinical investigational lots, and commercial-scale vaccine production may be available faster than by using traditional vaccine production methods,” the health department said in a statement.

The method does not need a seed strain to develop a vaccine, Adams said.

“While everyone else was waiting to get a seed strain, we worked with the genetic code from the virus,” said Adams.

“The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) sent us a dead virus, which is perfectly safe, and then we extracted genetic information from that virus.

“We can be in manufacturing a lot, lot quicker than people who have to wait for a seed strain,” he said.

Protein Sciences’ technology is also safer “because these caterpillars don’t have any association with man or other animals, so there’s no chance for their cells to learn how to propagate human viruses,” Adams told AFP.

Under the terms of the grant made to Protein Sciences, if the company’s new insect-cell technology proves to be safe and effective, the pharmaceutical minnow, which has just 50 employees, must boost its US manufacturing capability “to provide a finished vaccine within 12 weeks of pandemic onset.”

It would also have to produce at least 50 million doses of flu vaccine “within six months of pandemic onset.”

That should not be a problem, said Adams, because manufacturing a vaccine using insect cells can be easily and rapidly scaled up because it does not require the same specialized factories required to produce vaccine using egg or mammalian cells.

“We can manufacture our product facilities that make monoclonal antibodies, which is a huge class of products with a huge manufacturing capacity around the world,” said Adams.

Protein Sciences’ new vaccine against swine flu “could be available right away” if the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issues an emergency use authorization for it, as it did for the bird flu vaccine developed by Adams’s company.

Swiss drugs giant Novartis, which the US government gave 289 million dollars to help develop a vaccine against (A)H1N1 flu, said around two weeks ago that it was poised to begin pre-clinical trials — tests in vitro and on animals — on its first batch of novel swine flu vaccine.

Sanofi-Pasteur of France has said it hopes to have doses of swine flu vaccine ready for clinical trials within weeks, while Taiwan’s Adimmune Corporation said it expects to complete clinical trials on its A(H1N1) influenza vaccine around September.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Raymond James Financial, Inc. announced today that it has acquired Lane Berry, one of the nation’s leading middle market investment banking and advisory firms. Founded in 2002 by former Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) Managing Directors Frederick C. Lane and Robert M. Berry, Lane Berry employs 21 investment banking professionals with offices in Boston and Denver.

In addition to its reputation in Merger & Acquisition advisory services, the acquisition of Lane Berry contributes deep industry experience in the Business Services industry to the Raymond James investment banking platform, with particular expertise in financial services technology and payment and transaction processing.

As part of the acquisition, Lane, former chairman and CEO of Lane Berry, has joined Raymond James as vice chairman of investment banking and will work closely with Jim McDaniel and Dav Mosby, co-heads of Raymond James’ Investment Banking group, to actively serve clients across each of the firm’s core industry practices.

Berry, former president of Lane Berry, has joined as managing director and co-head of Raymond James’ M&A practice, and will help lead the firm’s expanded focus on middle market M&A advisory services.

Another of Lane Berry’s senior professionals, James E. Bunn, has been appointed co-head of the firm’s Business Services practice and, with Managing Director Joe Estes, will lead Raymond James’ investment banking effort in that industry.

“We are extremely fortunate to have the Lane Berry professionals join our firm,” said Jeff Trocin, executive vice president of Raymond James and head of the firm’s Equity Capital Markets unit. “They bring a highly regarded reputation in M&A advisory services and their senior-level, industry-expertise focused dedication to serving clients complements Raymond James’ approach. This acquisition underscores the continued expansion of our investment banking platform and the firm’s commitment to strategic growth in all market conditions.”

“Lane Berry represents the most prominent middle market investment bank serving the Business Services industry and this combination meaningfully enhances our expertise and presence in the sector,” added Mosby.

“Raymond James is a premier investment bank with an exceptional reputation in equity research and world-class institutional and retail distribution capabilities,” said Lane. “As we considered the next phase of our firm’s evolution, it became clear that Raymond James offered a close cultural fit and a full-service investment banking platform that would enable us to more fully serve the needs of our clients. My partners and I are pleased to be joining Raymond James, and look forward to helping build what we believe is a unique and powerful franchise.”

While at DLJ, Lane was instrumental in growing the firm’s investment banking business. The founder of DLJ’s first regional investment banking office, he spent more than half of his career in New York, where he served on the firm’s Equity Underwriting, Banking Review and Fairness and Valuation Committees. From 1989 to 1995, he was co-head of DLJ’s M&A Department.

Prior to forming Lane Berry, Berry was co-head of CSFB’s Boston office. He joined DLJ in 1994 and soon after transferred to DLJ’s Boston office in order to head the firm’s financial sponsor calling effort in that market. Before that he spent seven years with Kidder, Peabody & Co., in its New York, London, Los Angeles and Atlanta offices.

While at Lane Berry, Bunn was managing director and head of Transaction Processing & Financial Services Technology. Previously, he spent six years in Citigroup Global Markets’ Electronic Financial Services Group, focusing exclusively on the financial technology and payment and transaction processing industries.

Terms of the acquisition will not be disclosed.

About Raymond James

Raymond James Financial (NYSE-RJF) is a Florida-based diversified holding company providing financial services to individuals, corporations and municipalities through its subsidiary companies. Its three wholly owned broker/dealers (Raymond James & Associates, Raymond James Financial Services and Raymond James Ltd.) and Raymond James Investment Services Limited, a majority-owned independent contractor subsidiary in the United Kingdom, have a total of more than 5,000 financial advisors serving approximately 1.8 million accounts in more than 2,200 locations throughout the United States, Canada and overseas. In addition, total client assets are approximately $172 billion, of which $26 billion are managed by the firm’s asset management subsidiaries. The firm’s website is raymondjames.com.

About Lane Berry

Lane, Berry & Co. International, LLC, with offices in Boston and Denver, provides investment banking services to corporations, their boards and shareholders on matters relating to mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, debt and equity financings, and corporate governance issues.

- SME Business Communication and Software Veteran Steven G. Mihaylo Joins as CEO and Director –

- Donald Danks Resigns as CEO and Continues to Advise -

OREM, Utah, November 6, 2008 – iMergent, Inc. (AMEX: IIG) a leading provider of eCommerce software for small businesses and entrepreneurs, announced changes to its management and board. Donald L. Danks resigned as CEO and as a director; he will become a consultant to the company. Steven G. Mihaylo assumed the role of CEO and has been appointed to the board of directors. The total board count remains six members.

Todd A. Goergen, Chairman of iMergent, stated, “The board is committed to driving iMergent’s long-term growth and shareholder value. We are excited to welcome Steve who will be leading our company and exploring additional revenue opportunities in small-to-medium enterprise (SME) initiatives.”

“In addition, we thank Don for his valued contribution as iMergent grew from less than $50 million in 2003 annual sales to exceed $125 million in fiscal 2008 under his leadership. Don will continue to assist management as a consultant in the area of investor relations,” concluded Goergen.

Mihaylo, 64, is a retired chairman and chief executive officer of Inter-Tel, Incorporated, which he founded in 1969. He led the Inter-Tel evolution from providing business telephone systems to offering complete managed services and software that help businesses facilitate communication and increase customer service and productivity. Before selling Inter-Tel to Mitel for $720 million in 2007, Mihaylo grew the business to nearly $500 million in annual sales.

Mihaylo earned an honorary PhD from California State University – Fullerton and received a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration in Accounting & Finance from the university in 1969. He has served on boards of numerous community organizations including the Arizona Heart Foundation, Junior Achievement of Arizona, Arizona Museum of Science and Technology and the Arizona State University College of Business Dean’s Council of 100. Committed to education, Mihaylo is involved with the Karl Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona and has served on the advisory board of Junior Achievement of Central Arizona for over

25 years, as a member of the board of directors of the Big Bear High School Education Foundation and on the Dean’s Advisory Board of CSU-Fullerton.

About iMergent
iMergent provides eCommerce solutions to entrepreneurs and small businesses enabling them to market and sell their business products or ideas via the Internet. Headquartered in Orem, Utah, the company sells its proprietary StoresOnline software and training services, which help users build successful Internet strategies to market products, accept online orders, analyze marketing performance, and manage pricing and customers. In addition to software, iMergent offers website development, web hosting and marketing products. iMergent typically reaches its target audience through a concentrated direct marketing effort to fill Preview Sessions, in which a StoresOnline expert reviews the product opportunities and costs as well as offers StoresOnline Express for sale. These sessions lead to a follow-up Workshop Conference, where product and technology experts train potential users on the software and sells upgrades to StoresOnline Pro and StoresOnline Platinum.