OPTIMIZERx Corp. announced that it has engaged Beringea LLC, an investment banking and private equity firm. Beringea will assist in financial planning and strategically positioning the company for continued growth.

“Beringea specializes in advising clients who are seeking to execute strategic transactions or find private financing,” stated David Lester, CEO, OPRIMIZERx. “As we continue to position OPTIMIZERx’s growth within the healthcare marketplace we look to Beringea to be a strategic advisory partner for both growth and financial stability.”

“Beringea’s transaction advisory team has a deep expertise in the healthcare sector and is excited to share OPTIMIZERx’s value proposition with the market,” commented David Eberly, Beringea’s senior managing director and co-founder. “OPTIMIZERx’s ability to simplify complex medical processes like prescription sampling administration and distribution represents real cost saving opportunities to the industry and makes it an attractive player in the healthcare IT space.”

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Last night the U.S. House of Representatives brought us one large step closer to a national healthcare system. Investors should be cognizant of the financial effects that would follow.

In the extreme short-run, it would be reasonable to assume that the U.S. stock market would react negatively, although short-term price movements are often chaotic. In the intermediate-term, if the legislation goes forward, the healthcare sector should perform at a lower level than in periods prior to national healthcare.

The chart below shows the historical relative price performance of several healthcare sectors versus the S&P 500. They are: biotech ($DJUSBT), pharmaceuticals ($DJUSPR), healthcare providers ($DJUSHP), medical equipment manufacturers ($DJUSAM) and medical supplies ($DJUSMS). The overall healthcare sector is represented by $DJUSHC.

Biotech and pharmaceuticals have underperformed. We expect that relationship to be accentuated. The other sectors are expected to have lower relative performance than before, particularly the healthcare

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Doctor Up Your Portfolio With This Medical Communications Company

by Louise Harris, Investment U Research

The healthcare reform debate continues to swirl in Washington. And Marc Lichtenfeld and Louis Basenese have discussed this crucial topic recently, offering their thoughts on the companies best positioned to profit.

That’s because regardless of the back-and-forth and political slanging match, the healthcare sector still offers strong potential for solid returns, due to skyrocketing demand.

In particular, one small-cap poised for gains is the Utah-based firm ZYTO Corp. (OTC: ZYTC). It focuses on medical communication software and services, including an operating system that transfers information from computers to humans.

But ZYTO goes beyond simple data input. It uses patent-pending methods that monitor biological states in near-real time, creating a stimulus-response experience called a bio-survey.

(Translation: It reads life signs and converts them into easily readable

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Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH) recently announced expansion of operations at its Phoenix delivery center. New Jersey-based Cognizant is a leading provider of consulting, technology and business process outsourcing (BPO) services. The company’s Phoenix center will initially provide claims processing services to one of the largest healthcare plans in the U.S. There is a lot of opportunity for growth in the booming healthcare sector. As the company adds BPO services to the existing roster of application development, application maintenance, testing and related services at the Phoenix center, it plans to hire more than 100 professionals in the next twelve months thereby increasing the headcount to 400 in Phoenix. Phoenix is one of Cognizant's six delivery centers in the U.S. The company also has centers in Eastern Europe, India and China. Earlier this month, Cognizant posted strong results for the second quarter and upgraded its guidance ...

HCP Inc. (HCP), the largest medical real estate investment trust (REIT) in the U.S., recently completed an equity offering of 17.8 million shares at $24.75 each. The company will use the proceeds for repaying its outstanding debt under the revolving credit facility and general corporate purposes. The decrease in overall debt will reduce HCP’s financial leverage and strengthen its balance sheet.

During the second quarter, HCP had completed the sale of 20.7 million shares at $21.25 each, raising net proceeds of $422 million. This helped the company in improving its financial leverage to 44% in the quarter, from 48% at the end of 2008. The adjusted fixed charge coverage ratio also improved to 2.6X from 2.3X in the prior-year quarter.

HCP has the most diversified portfolio in the healthcare sector with exposure to all types of facilities. Its product diversity helps the company to capitalize on opportunities based

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The healthcare sector is not homogeneous and includes many different industries ranging from managed care organizations, healthcare facilities providers, medical device manufacturers to biotech and pharmaceutical companies. Investors in heath care therefore should remain mindful of the different drivers and appropriate metrics associated with the various sub-sectors.

That said, and recent market volatility aside, long-term growth of the healthcare sector overall continues to be fuelled by aging of the population and decisions in Congress related to government funding. Given the ongoing reform debate in Congress, healthcare policy changes remain an important signpost to investing in the sector.

As would be expected in the current backdrop of potentially unfavorable regulatory change, the outlook for many health care industry groups is currently in the `Bad' category. As case in point is the Managed Care Industry (HMOs), whose fortunes are set to be negatively affected by most of the legislative proposals currently on the

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The healthcare sector is not homogeneous and includes many different industries ranging from managed care organizations, healthcare facilities providers, medical device manufacturers to biotech and pharmaceutical companies. Investors in heath care therefore should remain mindful of the different drivers and appropriate metrics associated with the various sub-sectors.

That said, and recent market volatility aside, long-term growth of the healthcare sector overall continues to be fuelled by aging of the population and decisions in Congress related to government funding. Given the ongoing reform debate in Congress, healthcare policy changes remain an important signpost to investing in the sector.

As would be expected in the current backdrop of potentially unfavorable regulatory change, the outlook for many health care industry groups is currently in the `Bad' category. As case in point is the Managed Care Industry (HMOs), whose fortunes are set to be negatively affected by most of the legislative proposals currently on the

...

The healthcare sector is not homogeneous and includes many different industries ranging from managed care organizations, healthcare facilities providers, medical device manufacturers to biotech and pharmaceutical companies. Investors in heathcare therefore should remain mindful of the different drivers and appropriate metrics associated with the various sub-sectors. That said, and recent market volatility aside, long-term growth of the healthcare sector overall continues to be fuelled by aging of the population and decisions in Congress related to government funding.  Given the ongoing reform debate in Congress, healthcare policy changes remain an important signpost to investing in the sector. As would be expected in the current backdrop of potentially unfavorable regulatory change, the outlook for many health care industry groups is currently in the ‘Bad’ category. As case in point is the Managed Care Industry (HMOs), whose fortunes are set to be negatively affected by most of the legislative proposals ...

Today we are featuring top-performing "Health" equity mutual funds, which primarily invest in equity securities of companies from the health care sector or related industries.

Investors can find such funds by checking out the entire list of the Zacks #1 Rank Health equity Funds.3 Healthy Choices

Saratoga Health & Biotechnology A (WBRBX) was incepted in July 1999. The investment seeks long-term capital growth. The fund is non-diversified.

The fund utilizes a top-down investment approach focused on long-term economic trends for identifying high quality companies within the healthcare sector and seeks to acquire them at attractive prices.

Mark W. Oelschlager has been lead manager at the fund since November 2005. The fund has topped the total returns of its benchmark index in the last 1-andf 3-year periods.

Fidelity Select Health Care (FSPHX) seeks capital appreciation by primarily investing in equity

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US stocks registered their first decline in five weeks as investors assessed the outcome of Obama Administration's plans for an overhaul of financial regulations.  A fall in crude prices resulted in a sell off in energy stocks, hurting investor sentiments.  The S&P 500, which jumped to a high of 946.21 the previous week, lost almost 25 points during the week to close at 921.23 on Friday.  However, Nasdaq ended the day with a 1.1% gain after Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) was viewed positively by some brokers.  On a weekly basis, Nasdaq lost 1.7% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which slipped 0.2% on Friday, closed the week 2.95% lower.  With the quadruple witching of options expirations on Friday, volume on the NYSE jumped to 2.1 billion shares.

Investors this week are likely to take leads from data on housing, durable orders, and final GDP numbers for the first quarter.  Also,

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