Back in September -- when a share of WebMD was worth around $32 -- the company announced that it would acquire QualityHealth.com parent-company Marketing Technology Solutions for $50 million and a $25 million earnout. But now WebMD shares are $18 and the deal is dead. This year WebMD also failed to finish a long-planned merger with HLTH Corp.
The companies signed a small investment deal instead, with QualityHealth.com agreeing to serve WebMD ads. PaidContent's Staci Kramer says its only going to get rougher from here:
WebMD also faces increased competition. Merging QualityHealth.com’s 5.5 million uniques with its own network would have helped with the challenge it faces from Waterfront Media’s EverydayHealth, which recently merged with Steve Case’s Revolution Health LLC. The most recent numbers from comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) Media Metrix put EverydayHealth.com ahead of WebMD in unique visitors, the first time it had dropped from first place in recent memory. But WebMD still claims to be the “leading provider of health information services” through its mix of public and private sites and publications.
