PLANTATION, Fla., Jan. 25, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- MEDirect Latino Inc. (Pink Sheets:MLTO) (www.medirectlatino.org), the first national provider of direct-to-consumer Medicare reimbursed medical products focused exclusively on chronic diseases afflicting the Hispanic community, today announced that it has filled a key management position through the hiring of Ms. Dolores I. "Dee" Ammirati to the position of Director of Human Resources. Ms. Ammirati's primary responsibility will be implementing the Company's employee growth and retention policy, while maintaining customer service and responsiveness, which has become the hallmarks of the Company's rapid acceptance by the Hispanic community.
MEDirect Latino recently added 34 employees, and expects to hire at a substantially stronger pace through the end of the quarter than previously projected, due to the increased customer response rate resulting from the national advertising campaign. The Company anticipates adding 32 employees for positions in sales, customer care, billing, shipping and advertising to its second shift, and 41 additional employees to its first shift in similar capacities. Ms. Ammirati will further develop the Company's recruiting, hiring and retention policies. The Company's mandate will maximize its Plantation, Florida facility with the double-shift system, as well as service the new client orders that are now taxing the present sales and marketing staff of the Company. Additionally, Ms. Ammirati will assist in the identification and subsequent relocation of MEDirect Latino to larger facilities to accommodate the growth of the Company.
Ms. Ammirati brings 14 years of industry experience, formerly as human resources and operations manager with Lifeline Program and human resources coordinator for Electrolux Home Products for Latin America and the Caribbean region. She began her career as an operations management specialist for the U.S. Air Force. Ms. Ammirati is joining the MEDirect Latino executive team, whose combined 150 years of business development experience includes corporations such as Blockbuster Video, NBC-TV, South Pacific Holdings, Mercy Hospital Group and AmeriSource. MEDirect Latino President, Ms. Debra Towsley, and COO, Mr. Charles Hansen, have over 60 years of combined marketing experience, with Ms. Towsley serving as former Director of Strategic Alliance Marketing for Universal Studios and Mr. Hansen as Vice-President & General Manager of Pax TV. MEDirect Latino General Operations Manager, Mr. William Van Aalten, a pioneer in the direct to home diabetes care market, brings over 40 years of experience in pharmaceutical sales in both the wholesale and retail level, and Supervisor of Customer Care and Billing, Ms. Tammy Perez has 13 years of customer service and business development. Co-Chairman, Dr. Julio C. Pita Jr., former Head of Endocrinology at Mercy Hospital, is one of the leading specialists of diabetes care in the Hispanic community.
About MEDirect Latino
MEDirect Latino (Pink Sheets:MLTO) (www.medirectlatino.org) is a rapidly growing, uniquely positioned provider of direct-to-consumer Medicare reimbursed medical products focused exclusively on chronic diseases afflicting the Hispanic community in the United States and Puerto Rico. MEDirect is the only company positioned to serve the U.S. Hispanic healthcare market as a direct-to-consumer Medicare provider on an authentically national level. The Company's current focus is the distribution of products for the treatment of Type II diabetes specifically because of its disproportionate impact and increasing diagnosis rate within the US Hispanic population, noting an incidence of 120% higher than among non-Hispanic whites. Type II diabetes was also targeted because of its unique status within the Medicare reimbursement regime and because of its high degree of correlation to other chronic conditions such as high blood pressure and heart disease. These other conditions represent considerable future market potential that will allow MEDirect to efficiently scale its model by leveraging its existing client base and infrastructure.
The current Hispanic market for MEDirect's products is conservatively estimated at approximately $748MM in the continental United States. The size of the opportunity is understated by such figures as an estimated 1.2 million of the over 4.1 million Hispanics in the United States over 65 eligible to receive Medicare benefits are currently collecting these benefits with an estimate that over 1.4 million of those Medicare-eligible Hispanics have diabetes (implying a potential continental U.S. market for MEDirect products of approximately $1 billion).
Safe Harbor Disclosure
This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws, commonly identified by such terms as "believes," "looking ahead," "anticipates," "estimates" and other terms with similar meaning. Although the Company believes that the assumptions upon which its forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, it can give no assurance that these assumptions will prove to be correct. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's projections and expectations are disclosed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements in this press release are expressly qualified by such cautionary statements and by reference to the underlying assumptions.
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