Global financier Templeton invests $1 million in Medem

The medical society-owned online health company plans to use the money to expand its products and increase marketing.

By Tyler Chin, amednews staff. Oct. 7, 2002.

John M. Templeton has invested $1 million to acquire an undisclosed ownership stake in Medem Inc., a San Francisco-based company that facilitates online consultations between physicians and patients.

Templeton, who was knighted in 1987 by Queen Elizabeth II, approached Medem in August after reading about the company in The Wall Street Journal, said Edward Fotsch, MD, Medem's CEO.

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Medem referred questions about the size of the investment to Templeton, who faxed a statement to American Medical News stating that he invested $1 million in Medem, which is partly owned by the AMA.

Templeton said his hope that doctors soon will use technology to become more efficient helped influence his decision to invest in Medem. He also invested in the company because J.H. Whitney & Co., a global venture firm which has invested at least $20 million in Medem, "has a top record of venture capital success," he said.

Dr. Fotsch said Templeton was among a half-dozen parties who have expressed interest in investing in Medem since it launched its online consultation service in June. The company, which was not seeking financing when those potential investors approached it, is negotiating terms with some of them, he said. Dr. Fotsch declined to identify those parties.

Medem will use the money it received from Templeton to expand its products, and hire additional staff to market its consultation service and train physicians to use it, Dr. Fotsch said.

The 89-year-old Templeton is a pioneering global money manager.

He was one of the earliest investors to urge people to invest in interests abroad, founding and building a mutual fund empire specializing in international stocks that he sold in 1992 for $913 million.

He is a well-known philanthropist and value investor. He has said that he looks to invest at points of "maximum pessimism," meaning that he buys when everyone is scared of or fleeing the market.

When World War II broke out in 1939, for example, Templeton bought 100 shares of every company on the New York and American stock exchanges whose stock was selling for $1 a share or less, including 34 companies that were in bankruptcy. In 1998, he invested $10 million in a mutual fund that invested in Korean companies after a financial crisis had battered markets across Asia. In both instances, he made large profits.

Templeton's son, John M. Templeton Jr., MD, trained as a pediatric surgeon at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia under C. Everett Koop, MD. Dr. Templeton later joined the hospital's staff and became its trauma director.

Dr. Templeton, an AMA member, retired from practice in 1995 to work full-time as president for the John Templeton Foundation, his father's philanthropy arm.