B2B media firm Lebhar-Friedman sold the journals division of Dowden Health Media to Quadrant HealthCom in a move it said was designed to decrease reliance on advertising-based businesses.
The transaction, brokered by media bankers Desilva + Phillips, closed in December, and terms were not disclosed.
It gives Quadrant HealthCom four Dowden Professional Publications (DPP) journals—OBG Management, Current Psychiatry, The Journal of Family Practice and Mayo Clinic Proceedings—along with Dowden’s events division.
Commenting on the sale, Lebhar-Friedman president Roger Friedman told MM&M that with the dropoff in journal ad pages and numerous blockbusters losing patent protection in the next few years, his company was looking for less exposure to advertising-dependent businesses.
“We wanted to get away from products that were strictly advertising-based, and the professional journals group at Dowden was almost entirely advertising-based,” said Friedman. “We’d rather be in databases, research education—more proprietary products.”
As part of the sale, about 30 Dowden employees will relocate to Quadrant’s headquarters in Parsippany, NJ, from Dowden Health Media’s office in Montvale, NJ.
All DPP units will continue to be managed by existing personnel, while all Quadrant journals will continue operating in their current mode.
Quadrant president Stephen Stoneburn said in a statement: “We are excited about the opportunity to add leading properties in new therapeutic and audience markets and to expand our already strong presence in the women’s healthcare sector.” Quadrant’s stable of nine journals includes The Female Patient, Neurology Reviews, Emergency Medicine and Pulmonary Reviews.
From the February 01, 2010 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
