24/7 Media Launches Health Professional Channel

Ad network 24/7 Media Inc. launched a channel for health professionals and signed a global Internet advertising agreement with Medical Economics Company Inc., a publisher of healthcare magazines and directories.

24/7 Media will sell sponsorships and advertising on PDR.net, an umbrella medical and healthcare Web site that incorporates several publications and journals published by Medical Economics, including:

the Physicians’ Desk Reference, Medical Economics magazine, Contemporary OB/GYN, Contemporary Urology, Internal Medicine and Patient Care. The site also includes PDR’s consumer-oriented Getting Well Network.

PDR.net is customized for five distinct audiences: consumers, physicians, physician assistants, nurses and pharmacists.

PDR.net becomes the foundation site in 24/7 Media’s new Health Professional Channel, which will aggregate viewers from Web sites affiliated with leading medical journals, magazines and professional societies, as well as the medical professional sections of general healthcare sites.

The Health Professional Channel will be sold primarily by a specialty pharmaceutical sales force and is the first channel in 24/7 Media’s new business-to-business network.

“We are especially excited that PDR.net is one of the few major Web sites that requires physicians to provide credentials upon registration, enabling us to offer advertisers one of the largest and purest physician audiences on the Web,” said Bruce McDonald, vice president of the 24/7 Health Channel.