AOL in the Health Biz

The other day, I listened to a iinnovate podcast interview of Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel and then another Business Week podcast about new directions that Intel was taking. Both podcasts discussed that Intel was moving into the health arena which, with a growing senior population around the world, is forcast to be a very important market.

So it was interesting it see in the The New York Times article this morning, AOL Founder Hopes to Build New Giant Among a Bevy of Health Care Web Sites, that Steve Case is also taking a big stake in the online healthcare industry with an online website called RevolutionHealth.com. The article is interesting because it discusses his competitors such as WebMD.com, NIH.gov, from the National Institutes of Health; Yahoo Health; Mayoclinic.com; and About.com Health, which is owned by The New York Times Company. Google, too, jumping into the frey with searches for medical conditions.

The article also mentions some of the private investors who are bankrolling this venture, which include among others, former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. There is also a discussion about the enormous amount of money that drug companies are spending on advertising on and offline. Here is an excerpt about this:

"Martin J. Wygod, the chairman of WebMD Health, said the pharmaceutical companies were spending about $455 million on marketing to patients and doctors online this year. But that is only about 3.5 percent of the $13 billion the drug industry spends on advertising, he said."