News in brief - July 26, 2004

WebMD acquires ViPS - Report: Health care still hot investment option for venture capitalists - Filmmaker Moore to take on health care

WebMD acquires ViPS

WebMD Corp. has agreed to acquire ViPS Inc., a privately held company that sells antifraud software to insurers, for $160 million in cash plus assumption of debt. Baltimore-based ViPS, whose clients include the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, also sells data warehousing, claims processing and other services. The acquisition is expected to close in August.

Report: Health care still hot investment option for venture capitalists

Venture capitalists invested about $2 billion in health care companies during the second quarter of 2004, according to Jenks Healthcare Business Report.

The report, by New Canaan, Conn.-based Irving Levin Associates Inc. counted 111 investments in the quarter, divided among pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies. The report counted 97 deals, worth just more than $2 billion, in the first quarter of 2004.

Twenty-three health care companies secured financing of $30 million or more, and seven received funding of $50 million or more, during the second quarter, according to the report.

Filmmaker Moore to take on health care

Populist movie producer-director Michael Moore is planning a movie that will focus on the problems of the U.S. health care system, including the way that HMOs and hospitals treat patients with no coverage, according to a British newspaper.

Moore, whose political film "Fahrenheit 9/11" this year won top honors at the Cannes Film Festival and broke box office records for a documentary release, told the London Guardian his next project will involve him using a handheld camera to embarrass managed care plans and chain hospitals into treating patients who lack insurance. "I thought, 'What if we constructed a film where we could see how many lives we could save in 90 minutes, moving as fast as we can, and our only weapon is the camera?'," he told the newspaper.

Moore previously had alluded to a planned documentary named "Sicko," which was to be released in 2006, that would look specifically at the treatment of the mentally ill.