OPKO Health Announces Appointment of Juan F. Rodriguez as Chief Financial Officer

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

OPKO Health, Inc. (OPK) is pleased to announce the appointment of Juan F. Rodriguez as its new Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Rodriguez replaces Mr. Rao Uppaluri who is retiring.

Mr. Rodriguez brings to OPKO over 20 years of financial and business leadership experience, with over half of that in the life sciences field. Most recently, Mr. Rodriguez was serving as a consultant and advisor since 2007 to Cognitec Systems GmbH, a German software developer. From 1995 to 2007, prior to its acquisition by Abbott Laboratories, Mr. Rodriguez had been with Kos Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a publicly traded, specialty pharmaceutical company engaged in the development and commercialization of proprietary prescription products. During his twelve years at Kos, Mr. Rodriguez held various positions of increasing responsibility, including serving as Interim Chief Financial Officer, and last serving as Senior Vice President, Controller and Corporate Administration. Prior to joining Kos, Mr. Rodriguez was employed by Arthur Andersen LLP from 1991 to 1994. Mr. Rodriguez is a Certified Public Accountant and obtained his Bachelor of Accounting from Florida International University.

“We are extremely pleased to welcome Juan to OPKO. Juan’s industry knowledge and financial expertise will be invaluable as we continue to grow our company and execute our strategy to establish industry-leading positions in large and rapidly growing medical markets,” said Phillip Frost, M.D., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of OPKO.

Rao Uppaluri, has elected to retire from his role as the Chief Financial Officer of the Company, but will remain involved as a consultant to OPKO.

“On behalf of OPKO’s Board of Directors and the entire OPKO team, I want to thank Rao for his valuable contributions to OPKO,” said Dr. Frost. “Rao has been instrumental as a founding member of OPKO and leaves behind a strong, capable financial team. Our company and its employees have all benefited from Rao’s efforts and we wish him the very best in retirement. We are also delighted that Rao will continue to be involved with OPKO, ensuring a smooth transition.”

About OPKO Health, Inc.

OPKO is a multi-national biopharmaceutical and diagnostics company that seeks to establish industry-leading positions in large and rapidly growing medical markets by leveraging its discovery, development and commercialization expertise and novel and proprietary technologies.

This press release contains "forward-looking statements," as that term is defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA), which statements may be identified by words such as "expects," "plans," "projects," "will," "may," "anticipates," "believes," "should," "intends," "estimates," and other words of similar meaning, including all non-historical statements about our expectations, beliefs or intentions regarding our business, technologies and products, financial condition, strategies, prospects, growth opportunities, and management. Many factors could cause our actual activities or results to differ materially from the activities and results anticipated in forward-looking statements. These factors include those described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and risks inherent in funding, developing and obtaining regulatory approvals of new, commercially-viable and competitive products and treatments. In addition, forward-looking statements may also be adversely affected by general market factors, competitive product development, product availability, federal and state regulations and legislation, the regulatory process for new products and indications, manufacturing issues that may arise, patent positions and litigation, among other factors. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date the statements were made, and, except as required by applicable law, we do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements. We intend that all forward-looking statements be subject to the safe-harbor provisions of the PSLRA.

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Univita Health Appoints Jean Haynes President and Chief Executive Officer

Mon, Jun 4, 2012, 9:36 AM EDT - U.S. Markets close in 6 hrs 24 mins

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EK Health Names Douglas Benner Chief Medical Officer

Thu, Apr 5, 2012, 6:40 PM EDT - U.S. Markets closed

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SCAN Health Plan Appoints Nancy Monk Chief Risk Officer

Stocks: Bull Market Enters Fourth YearCNNMoney.com

The bull market on Wall Street enters its fourth year this week and investors are wondering how much higher stocks …

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Obama health chief visits L.A. clinic, announces plan to help students

Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, fields questions at a panel discussion at the Eisner Pediatric and Family Medical Center in downtown Los Angeles. Earlier, she announced more than $9 million in funding to help medical students repay school loans if they agree to work in underserved areas. (Arkasha Stevenson / Los Angeles Times / February 13, 2012)

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius visited a health clinic in downtown Los Angeles on Monday and announced more than $9 million in funding to help medical students repay school loans if they agree to work in underserved areas.

Sebelius said the program will encourage more students to pursue careers in family medicine and will help relieve a shortage of primary care doctors.

"Most Americans who live in underserved areas don't have access to basic care," she said during the visit to Eisner Pediatric and Family Medical Center. "It is not just a problem in some rural, isolated communities. It's a big problem in cities, like here in L.A."

Sebelius toured the Eisner clinic, which serves more than 26,000 patients each year, and took part in a panel discussion about community health clinics. Clinics nationwide received an influx of financial support from the federal health reform law, designed to improve quality of care and reduce costs.

In the past, Sebelius said that not enough attention was paid to workforce issues. But that has changed, and now there is more effort to expand that workforce, including training primary care doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

The loan repayment program, also funded by the federal law, is part of the National Health Service Corps and provides up to $120,000 to students who commit to spending three years as primary care doctors in underserved areas.

The National Health Service Corps, created in 1972, has tripled in size over the last three years. The program already provided loan repayment for medical residents, while the new effort reaches students who are still in medical school.

One of the recipients, Eric Schluederberg, a medical student at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, said he was originally interested in primary care because his father is a family physician. But he is also inspired by his fiancee, who has spina bifida, a birth defect believed to be preventable with proper prenatal care.

"It is part of the reason I want to be out there, helping women who just don't know," he said. "I want to be part of that."

Naomi Gordon-Walinksy, a doctor at the Eisner clinic, said the National Health Service Corps has helped her and other colleagues remain at the clinic.

"It's been a huge lift off my shoulders to be able to not worry about making the monthly loan payments," she said. "… It helps us stay committed to our work here."

anna.gorman@latimes.com

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Vt. health chief says smart meters look OK

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Vermont's top health officer told lawmakers Thursday not to worry about a form of radiation emitted by the wireless smart meters some Vermont utilities want to install in customers' homes and businesses.

Dr. Harry Chen, the state health commissioner, told the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday that an international health panel last year found that radio frequency radiation emitted by cellphones is a possible source of brain cancer in heavy cellphone users.

Chen said smart meters emit well less than 1 percent of the radiation emitted by cellphones, and they're not often held right next to the head.

"From actual measurements the Department of Health has made at active smart meter antenna, the devices are not likely to emit levels of radiofrequency radiation more than a small fraction of a single percentage of the levels from a wireless telephone, even at very close proximity to the meters," Chen told members of the Senate Finance Committee.

But the committee also heard testimony by other scientists and environmentalists who said there is cause for concern.

Smart meters communicate with a utility, allowing it to track and bill for electrical usage without sending meter readers out once a month. They enable utilities to pinpoint the locations of power outages much more easily than was the case with previous technology. Eventually, they're expected to allow customers to track their own electrical usage with an eye toward saving money and energy.

Promoters of the devices say they can help reduce power demand when it peaks, for example, on a hot summer day. Such systems can orchestrate power users taking turns having their air conditioning turn off for a few minutes at a time, reducing power demand on the overall system and cutting the need for utilities to buy extra power when it is most expensive.

But critics say the wireless smart meters Vermont's two largest power companies — Green Mountain Power and Central Vermont Public Service — are hoping to install this year emit radio frequency radiation in pulses with uncertain and possibly worrisome health effects.

Dr. Karl Maret, a California physician who has studied the issue, urged the committee to require Vermont's utilities to install more expensive hard-wired smart meters.

With the wired meters, "our health long-term would be more assured. There would be no radiation whatsoever, and I think that's the core issue here," Maret said.

Chen sought to put the committee at ease. "People are not likely to be exposed to measureable amounts of radio frequency radiation from smart meters," he said.

Some of the critics pointed to "piggy-backing," in which new sources of radiation are added to televisions, microwave ovens, wireless computer systems and other already existing ones.

"All build radio frequency emissions to a point where they aren't typical, and they aren't characterized" by scientific studies, said Cindy Sage, a California-based environmental consultant.

The state Public Service Board, which regulates utilities, has been reviewing the companies' plans to install smart meters since 2007, but it is only since July of 2011 that critics have been raising health concerns in Vermont, said George Young, the board's policy director. Changing course now likely would impose significant costs, which likely would be passed on to ratepayers, he said.

Matt Levin of the group Vermonters for a Clean Environment, acknowledged his group and its allies were late to the debate. With utilities already having bought thousands of wireless smart meters, switching to wired meters would be "a very significant and costly course correction. I get that," Levin said.

But he said some individuals are more sensitive to the sort of radiation emitted by smart meters than others. He urged the committee to require the Health Department to prepare to deal with the complaints that will arise. Those calling with them "should be treated with dignity and respect," he said.

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Orriant Chief Calls on CEOs to Save the U.S. Health Care System

SALT LAKE CITY, UT--(Marketwire -01/27/12)- A health industry leader today urged corporate America to stop complaining about skyrocketing employee health costs -- now the third largest expense for U.S. companies today -- and start doing something about it.

In a controversial article published today in Bloomberg View, the new editorial unit of the BusinessWeek media franchise, Darrell Moon, the chief executive of wellness program provider Orriant, chastised his fellow CEOs for what he termed "their curious passivity" in the face of employee health costs that have literally doubled in the last ten years.

"Chief executive officers," Moon wrote, are "failing to employ even the most basic management tools and economic incentives to deal with the problem" -- techniques that every one of them learned back in business school.

Moon then pointed to seven simple things that CEOs can do to reign in their spiraling employee health costs. These range from offering bonuses to human resource and benefit managers who reduce the company's health plan costs (but not its plan benefits), to targeting high-cost risk factors like depression for early intervention by employee assistance programs.

But the most important thing CEOs can do is to incentivize their own employees to get healthier. This, Moon insisted, is the real game-change for a company's bottom line.

That's because a new Gallup poll found that an astonishing 86 percent of all full-time employees in the U.S. are overweight or suffer from one or more chronic health conditions. So offering incentives like reduced premium contributions to employees willing to work with a health coach to change their health-related lifestyles makes simple economic sense, said Moon.

"The point is," wrote Moon, "that CEOs cannot keep handing out unlimited health benefits with no strings attached. Employees who don't even try to modify their health risks," he argued, "should pay more."

The article -- titled "It Takes a CEO to Save the U.S. Health Care System" -- also quotes health care author and thought leader Joe Flower: "We could have better healthcare at half the cost, without denying care to anyone, just by driving economic incentives back into the system."

Orriant is a Sandy, Utah-based wellness program provider serving companies nationwide. For more information, call 888-346-0990, email info@orriant.com, or go to www.orriant.com.

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Health chief says: Budget for meds can spur "health crisis"

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