DrKoop hits the skids - Short Takes: News at Deadline - acquired by Vitacost.com - Brief Article

Physician Executive, Sept-Oct, 2002 by James A. Hawkins

Once valued at more than a billion dollars, DrKoop.com, which was one of the early providers of health information over the Internet, was sold for a mere $186,000 to Vitacost.com. Vitacost sells health-related products over the Internet and is based in Boynton Beach, Fla.

According to Vitacost, it will now own DrKoop.com's assets, including its brand name, Web site and the e-mail addresses of its registered users. The Web site attracts nearly a million visitors each month and has more than 2 million registered users.

DrKoop.com rode the boom and bust cycle of the Internet. The high profile of the former surgeon general's name -- although C. Everett Koop, MD, is not associated with the business --helped it garner backing from private investors and then even more cash from a public offering of stock But even flashly deals like the ones it signed with Walt Disney Co. and AOL Time Warner were not enough to generate a reliable cash flow of sufficient size to meet its needs.

Vitacost took a much slower approach to growth, achieved profitability and now is using its cash to bargain hunt among failed dot.coms. A spokesman for Vitacost says the company still views medical information as a growth area on the Internet.