LOS ANGELES, CA — (Marketwired) — 11/12/13 — (OTCQB: MMRF), a leading provider of (PHRs), storage solutions and electronic document management and imaging systems for , today announced that as a result of recent awareness from the launch of Obamacare and patient engagement requirements mandated by Meaningful Use Stage 2 under the HITECH Act, the Company-s primary business will now focus on licensing its patented Personal Health Record products and services and other intellectual property in addition to selling those services as a practicing entity. MMR-s patented MyMedicalRecords PHR can help strategic partners and providers meet requirements to use health IT products and services under the HITECH Act. A core requirement of Meaningful Use Stage 2 is that eligible healthcare professionals provide at least 50% of patients the ability to view, download and transmit their health information online within four business days of the information being available, such as through a patient portal or Personal Health Record, in order to qualify for stimulus incentive payments. The Company, through its wholly-owned subsidiary MyMedicalRecords, Inc. (collectively, “MMR”), currently has eight issued U.S. health IT patents pertaining to Personal Health Records including U.S. Patent Nos. 8,301,466; 8,352,287; 8,352,288; 8,121,855; 8,117,646; 8,117,045; 8,321,240; and 8,498,883, as well as additional applications and continuation applications involving inventions pertaining to Personal Health Records, Patient Portals and other Electronic Health Record systems. In addition to the United States, MMR currently has patents issued, pending and/or applied for in 11 other countries or regional authorities including Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Mexico, Japan, Canada, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, Israel and Europe.
Starting in late 2011 and throughout 2012, MMR received numerous issued U.S. and international patents, in addition to those pending and applied for pertaining to provisioning of online medical and , in 12 countries of commercial interest including the U.S. At this point in time, MMR has also filed five significant patent infringement complaints against Walgreen Co., Quest Diagnostics Incorporated, Jardogs, LLC, WebMD Health Corp. and WebMD Health Services Group, Inc. (collectively “WebMD”) and Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc. in an effort to enforce its global intellectual property rights and protect and expand its brand. MMR is also in negotiations with several major providers of health IT products and services regarding licensing its IP to companies that have not been named as defendants in the five existing patent infringement suits pursuant to existing non-disclosure agreements which are customary when negotiating these types of significant and complex license agreements. Notwithstanding those infringement matters where complaints have been filed, MMR continues to focus on settlement of infringement matters wherever possible, which may include the purchasing and reselling of MMR-s products and services in addition to payments of significant license fees.
The Company also announced the filing of an additional patent application in Canada as a result of Canada-s participation in the Patent Prosecution Highway Program. This patent when issued will provide additional protection of MMR-s specific antibodies that have particular utility in fighting cancers. Additional patent applications for the Company-s antibodies are also pending in a number of other countries including the U.S., Brazil, China, Hong Kong, India, Europe, Japan and South Korea. MMR-s anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies are considered extremely important assets of the Company, the value and benefit of which are demonstrated by how these antibodies are used commercially in products like Rituxan®, an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody which is due to go off patent in 2015.
As previously reported, MMR was issued a U.S. patent for its anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies, and the Company has received confirmation from Canada of the filing on October 30, 2013 of a divisional Canadian patent application of Application No. 2,673,725 entitled “Antibodies and Methods for Making and Using Them.” The filing is part of MMRGlobal-s plan to expand the scope of its biotech assets and other intellectual property, in particular, the Company-s issued U.S. Patent No. 8,465,741 directed at its anti-CD20 antibody assets, which has also already been granted in Mexico and Australia.
Prior to the Company-s reverse merger in 2009 with Favrille, Inc., it had invested more than $100 million in research and development on its FavId vaccine trials and use of customized tumor cells to treat lymphoma patients and other technologies. MMR has continued to protect the Company-s biotechnology assets, including its anti-CD20 antibodies and B-Cell vaccine patents and data from vaccine trials including patient tumor samples and other intellectual property. Despite its extensive portfolio of biotech assets MMR remains focused on its primary health IT business.
The anti-CD20 antibodies are part of MMR-s portfolio of biotech assets and other intellectual property owned by Favrille, originally spun off from Memorial Sloan-Kettering-s Sidney Kimmel Center for Prostate and Urologic Cancers. As previously announced, Mexico (and thereafter the U.S.) granted the first patents for the Company-s anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody assets under the title “Antibodies and Methods for Making and Using Them.” The issuance of U.S. Patent No. 8,465,741 on June 18, 2013 provided the Company with a mechanism to request expedited examination of the equivalent patent claims in various international countries. The recent filings of new divisional patent applications in Japan, China and now Canada seeks to take advantage of this expedited process.
MMRGlobal, Inc., through its wholly-owned operating subsidiary, MyMedicalRecords, Inc., provides secure and easy-to-use online Personal Health Records (“PHRs”) and electronic safe deposit box storage solutions, serving consumers, healthcare professionals, employers, insurance companies, financial institutions, retail pharmacies, and professional organizations and affinity groups. The PHR enables individuals and families to access their medical records and other important documents, such as birth certificates, passports, insurance policies and wills, anytime from anywhere using the Internet. MyMedicalRecords is built on proprietary, patented technologies to allow documents, images and voicemail messages to be transmitted and stored in the system using a variety of methods, including fax, phone, or file upload without relying on any specific electronic medical record platform to populate a user-s account. The Company-s professional offering, , is designed to give physicians- offices an easy and cost-effective solution to digitizing paper-based medical records and sharing them with patients through an integrated patient portal. Through its merger with Favrille, Inc. in January 2009, the Company acquired intellectual property biotech assets that include anti-CD20 antibodies and data and samples from its FavId/Specifid vaccine clinical trials for the treatment of B-Cell Non-Hodgkin-s lymphoma. To learn more about MMRGlobal, Inc. visit . View demos and video tutorials of the Company-s products and services at .
All statements in this press release that are not strictly historical in nature, including, without limitation, intellectual property enforcement actions, infringement claims or litigation, intellectual property licenses, and future performance, management-s expectations, beliefs, intentions, estimates or projections, constitute “forward-looking statements.” Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause MMR-s actual results to be materially different from historical results or from any results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Some can be identified by the use of words (and their derivations) such as “need,” “possibility,” “potential,” “intend,” “offer,” “development,” “if,” “negotiate,” “when,” “begun,” “believe,” “achieve,” “will,” “estimate,” “expect,” “maintain,” “plan,” and “continue,” or the negative of these words. Actual outcomes and results of operations and the timing of selected events may differ materially from the results predicted, and any reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. Such statements are necessarily based on assumptions and estimates and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those relating to the possible invalidity of the underlying assumptions and estimates and possible changes or developments in economic, business, industry, market, legal and regulatory circumstances and conditions and actions taken or omitted to be taken by third parties, including customers, suppliers, business partners, potential licensees, competitors and legislative, judicial and other governmental authorities and officials. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: unexpected outcomes with respect to intellectual property enforcement actions, claims of intellectual property infringement and general intellectual property litigation; our ability to maintain, develop, monetize and protect our patent portfolio for both MMR-s health IT and biotechnology intellectual property assets in the U.S. and internationally; the timing of milestone payments in connection with licensing our intellectual property; our ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships; changes in our relationships with our licensees; the risk MMR-s products are not adopted or viewed favorably by the healthcare community and consumer retail market; business prospects, results of operations or financial condition; risks related to the current uncertainty and instability in financial and lending markets, including global economic uncertainties; the timing and volume of sales and installations; the length of sales cycles and the installation process; the market-s acceptance of new product and service introductions; competitive product offerings and promotions; changes in government laws and regulations including the 2009 HITECH Act and changes in Meaningful Use and the 2010 Affordable Care Act; future changes in tax legislation and initiatives in the healthcare industry; undetected errors in our products; the possibility of interruption at our data centers; risks related to third party vendors; risks related to obtaining and integrating third-party licensed technology; risks related to a security breach by third parties; risks associated with recruitment and retention of key personnel; other litigation matters; uncertainties associated with doing business internationally across borders and territories; and additional risks discussed in MMR-s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. MMR is providing this information as of the date of this release and, except as required by applicable law, does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Michael Selsman
Public Communications Co.
(310) 922-7033
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