Elsevier Acquires Edra S.p.A

MILAN, Italy, January 22 /PRNewswire/ --     Elsevier has acquired Edra S.p.A, 
an online publishing company
in the healthcare field. Together, Elsevier and Edra will be able to provide
professional and promotional support to pharmaceutical companies by combining
Elsevier's content and services with Edra's electronic capabilities and
online delivery channel. An important tool is Medikey, the largest online
medical and healthcare professional community in Italy.



    Elsevier Masson S.r.l, based in Milan, is the market leading
provider of scientific and medical content and services, in the form of
books, journals, drug databases and pharmaceutical marketing support.



    Edra S.p.A., also based in Milan, provides e-pharma promotional services
and is Continual Medical Education provider certified by the Italian Ministry
of Health and the region of Lombardy, both for residential and distance
learning. The company was founded in 1986 by Vincenzo Coluccia, who holds
majority ownership in Edra and is Managing Director.



    Edra is well known for Medikey, a broad medical community of
200,000 Italian doctors, 37,000 pharmacists, 40,000 healthcare professionals
(biologists nurses, etc), 70,000 policy and decision makers (national and
regional ones), and Azfarma, a community of more than 15,000 pharma and
medical device managers.



    Edra publishes important online magazines including
Doctornews33, Dermatologia33 and Cardiologia33 for doctors, Farmacista33 for
pharmacists and Pharmamarketing to pharma managers. Edra also maintains the
portals http://www.dica33.it (the leading Italian consumer health portal)
http://www.doctor33.it, (the leading medical doctors portal), and
http://www.pharmamarketing.it (for pharmaceutical company professionals).



    Vincenzo Coluccia, Managing Director of Edra, comments: "We
see wonderful opportunities to serve Edra clients even better by giving them
access to the superior Elsevier Masson content and services. I look forward
to contribute to the development of the possibilities that will emerge."



    Wubbo Tempel, Managing Director of Elsevier Masson Italy,
says: "This is a very important acquisition for, Elsevier as there will be no
other company in Italy able to deliver personalized content service directly
to health care professionals in the way we will be able to."



    About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical
information products and services. Working in partnership with the global
science and health communities, Elsevier's 7,000 employees in over 70 offices
worldwide publish more than 2,000 journals and 1,900 new books per year, in
addition to offering a suite of innovative electronic products, such as
ScienceDirect (http://www.sciencedirect.com/), MD Consult (
http://www.mdconsult.com/), Scopus (http://www.info.scopus.com/),
bibliographic databases, and online reference works.



    Elsevier (http://www.elsevier.com/) is a global business
headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and has offices worldwide.
Elsevier is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc (http://www.reedelsevier.com/), a
world-leading publisher and information provider. Operating in the science
and medical, legal, education and business-to-business sectors, Reed Elsevier
provides high-quality and flexible information solutions to users, with
increasing emphasis on the Internet as a means of delivery. Reed Elsevier's
ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK
and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).



    
    Name: Shira Tabachnikoff
    E-mail: [e-mail]
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