PLANTATION, Fla., June 12, 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 completed relocation of all operations to a new state-of-the-art corporate headquarters facility in Pompano Beach, Florida. MEDirect Latino's new facility is 23,336 square feet and increases the Company's operating space by 285% over its former facility to accommodate fiscal year 2007 projections of over $44 million.
The new corporate headquarters houses the Company's sales, customer care, medical billing, and warehouse and management offices including pharmacy and retail operations. MEDirect Latino currently has 115 employees in two shifts and anticipates hiring 20 new employees monthly in customer care, sales, billing and fulfillment, to service the growing customer demand.
Mr. Raymond J. Talarico, Co-Chairman and Executive Vice-President, MEDirect Latino stated, "Our move to much larger facilities allows MEDirect to service the growing number of customers responding to our national media campaigns. We were able to minimize disruptions to our operations and have again recorded record revenues for last month. The team assembled to complete the move did it with military precision. I look forward to outgrowing this facility. Our current space allows MEDirect to realize revenue plateaus of $4 million to $5 million monthly before it is necessary increase our facility size."
MEDirect Latino will release its May revenue report tomorrow at 4:05PM Eastern, following the close of the market.
ABOUT MEDIRECT LATINO:
MEDirect Latino (Pink Sheets:MLTO) (www.medirectlatino.org) is the first national provider of direct-to-consumer Medicare reimbursed medical products focused exclusively on chronic diseases afflicting the Hispanic community. MEDirect Latino is rapidly growing and uniquely positioned to service 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 due to the disproportionate impact and increasing diagnosis rate of diabetes 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.