Ascend Media has sold its struggling medical titles to
Intellisphere for an undisclosed sum.
The Plainsboro, NJ-based publisher of MD Net Guide picks up The
American Journal of Managed Care, Cardiology
Review, Pharmacy Times, Resident & Staff Physician, Surgical Rounds, Family Practice Recertification, Internal Medicine World Report and Physician's Money Digest.
Overland Park, KS-based Ascend announced in December that it
would shutter three titles—Physician's Money
Digest, Family Practice
Recertification and Internal Medicine
World Report—and was considering selling the rest of its Princeton,
NJ-based healthcare division due to weakness in the market for advertising on
primary care titles.
Last month, the firm sold its dental group to Aegis
Communications. The publisher is holding onto its LA-based Allied Healthcare
division, whose 14 specialty titles are more dependent on advertising from
medical device manufacturers and service providers than from pharma.
Will Passano, who headed Ascend's Princeton
healthcare unit, has left the company. The titles will be managed by
Intellisphere president Brian Haug and Herb Marek, president and COO of
Intellisphere parent MJH & Associates.