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EXHIBIT 99.1
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HealthCentral Closes Acquisition of more.com and Comfort Living Assets
Expands Product Line With High Margin Items
EMERYVILLE, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--Dec. 18, 2000--HealthCentral (HCEN), a
leading online provider of health products through its health superstore, WebRx,
and information through its consumer content site, HealthCentral.com, today
announced it has closed its acquisition of certain assets of the online health
superstore more.com, Inc. and its subsidiary Comfort Living, Inc., a 13-year-old
home and personal comfort products distributor acquired by more.com in February
2000.
Assets acquired by HealthCentral include all of the assets, properties and
certain liabilities associated with more.com's Comfort Living division including
its website, inventory and a leased 18,000 square foot warehouse and
distribution center in Gaithersburg, MD. HealthCentral also acquired all of
more.com's trademarked names, websites and customer lists, and a web site
affiliate agreement with PharMor.com, Inc. Phar-Mor, Inc. operates a retail
drugstore chain of 140 stores under the names Phar-Mor, Pharmhouse and The Rx
Place in 24 states. Under the terms of the deal, more.com received approximately
5.0 million shares of common stock from HealthCentral that will not be eligible
for sale prior to March 15, 2001.
"Comfort Living is an excellent addition to our product line," said Albert
Greene, CEO and Chairman of HealthCentral. "We want to provide comprehensive
consumer health care with a broad choice of health-related products supported by
up-to-date health information from our award winning content sites."
The Comfort Living product lines are represented in four categories Breathe
Easier, Sleep Better, Back Comfort, and Healthier Home, and feature thousands of
items, including personal comfort products, back pain products, baby products,
maternity products, and an extensive line of allergy control products.
"Our acquisition of the Comfort Living assets complements our addition of other
high margin product lines, which is strategically fulfilling our goal to
establish multiple high margin categories in our health superstore. This year we
added vitamins, minerals and supplements from Vitamins.com; reading glasses
through our exclusive license for Dr. Dean Edell Eyewear; contact lenses through
an agreement with Lens First; and additional vision care and other high margin
products," said Fred Toney, President and Chief Operating Officer of
HealthCentral. "Importantly, we expect no ongoing, incremental cash burn to the
HealthCentral because of the acquisition of these assets."
Visitors to the more.com website are redirected to WebRx.com. Vitamins, over-
the-counter products and prescription orders will be fulfilled out of
HealthCentral's recently consolidated Louisville distribution center, while
Comfort Living products will continue to be fulfilled from Comfort Living's
existing distribution center in Gaithersburg, MD.
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The Phar-Mor agreement provides for the prominent promotion of the more.com web
site and as well as a unique URL linked to the more.com web site in all of its
marketing collateral and other promotional materials including prescription
bags, shopping bags, circulars, print advertising, Internet and other online
advertising, and newsletters and other promotional emails, and on all of its POS
register receipts, that Par-Mor provides to its customers. This is in addition
to the branding and in-store pick-up arrangement previously announced by
HealthCentral with Drug Emporium, Inc.
About HealthCentral
HealthCentral (Nasdaq: HCEN - news) is a leading provider of healthcare e-
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commerce and content to consumers through a network of sites: WebRx(SM),
Vitamins.com, HealthCentral.com, RxList.com and DrugEmporium.com. HealthCentral
is also an applications service provider to hospitals and healthcare
organizations for health e-commerce and content. Its e-commerce site, WebRx(SM)
(www.webrx.com), features more than 25,000 products in eight different
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categories. In addition to its much-praised, full service pharmacy, WebRx(SM)
features one of the world's largest selections of vitamins, a complete Vision
Center and a Comfort Living department, where products such as ergonomic chairs,
water purifiers and an extensive line of allergy control products are sold.
HealthCentral.com provides in-depth health-related information and commentary by
experts such as Dr. Dean Edell, the People's Pharmacy and Covert Baily's "Fit
or Fat". The site features user-friendly interactive tools, daily health news,
personalized health risk assessments and topical newsletters.
HealthCentral Forward Looking Statements
Except for historical information, the statements in this news release are
forward-looking statements, involving risks and uncertainties that could cause
actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking
statements. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to,
the Company's limited operating history and need to generate revenues, the
Company's need to preserve and possibly raise additional cash, the substantial
competition in the ehealth market, possible liability related to content on or
accessed through the Company's Web sites, the need to build a brand name
quickly, the effect of substantial and changing government regulation, possible
systems interruptions, a failure to integrate acquisitions or manage growth, and
a failure to attract and retain key employees. Further information regarding
these and other risks is included in HealthCentral.com's Annual Report on the
Form 10-K for the year ended December 31,1999, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q
for the quarters ended March 31, 2000, June 30, 2000, and September 30, 2000 and
other documents filed with the SEC.
Contact:
HealthCentral.com
Joanne Papini, 510/250-3860 (media)
[email protected]
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Robin Raborn, 510/250-3852 (financial)
[email protected]
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www.ir.healthcentral.com
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