Sermo Adds Healthcare Panellists with Minter Acquisition

Online physician community Sermo has acquired Australian research panel provider Minter Group, in a move which will add an additional 50,000 Asia Pacific-based healthcare personnel (HCP) to Sermo's panel of 1.3 million physicians. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Founded in 1981 by Geoff and Annette Minter, the Minter Group has built panels across a number of industries including IT, consumer and healthcare, and conducted focus groups, phone, IDIs and face-to-face interviews with general practitioners, specialists, pharmacists, nurses and patients in most fields. For the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, Minter employs multilingual HCPs and research facilitators across multiple specialties, servicing clients such as Ipsos and Optical Strategix.

As part of the deal, Minter HCPs will now have access to Sermo's platform benefits including medical crowdsourcing capabilities, the firm's database of a million physician drug ratings, specialty-specific educational content from industry and more. Peter Kirk, Sermo CEO, comments: 'We're excited to welcome Minter customers into a larger global initiative to amplify the voice of physicians and ultimately, support better patient outcomes.'

Web sites: www.sermo.com and www.minter.com.au .