Six Bay Area Healthcare Companies Achieve Semi-Finalist Status for ABBY Awards  10^th Annual Innovations in Healthcare^SM Awards Event to be held April 23, 2008

Orange, CA — January 23, 2008 — Six San Francisco Bay Area companies have been selected as Semi-Finalists for the 2008 ABBY Awards, to be presented at the 10th Annual Innovations in Healthcare^SM Awards Event, on April 23, 2008, hosted by the Adaptive Business Leaders (ABL) Organization. These awards honor innovative companies from throughout the country, who have proven ways to lower the cost of providing quality healthcare through their medical or information technology, or innovative approaches to the delivery of healthcare.

The criteria for the 10th Annual ABBY Awards competition is particularly demanding: each of the Semi-Finalists in the categories of medical/biotech/diagnostic technology, healthcare information or telecom technology, and approach to the delivery of healthcare must have demonstrated that they are:

• innovative
• approved for use in the U.S. marketplace
• have clinical and financial metrics that prove their technology or approach reduces the cost of providing quality healthcare

"This year's national ABBY competition drew entries from ten states and the District of Columbia, resulting in the selection of 46 Semi-Finalists," noted ABL's President Mimi Grant. "This truly is a significant accomplishment for these companies, since each of them survived this first hurdle - when literally thousands of healthcare and life science companies would not even qualify to be nominated for an ABBY, and over 40 additional nominees were disqualified for not responding with proof of meeting all three of the criteria."

The next step "on the road to the ABBY" will occur on January 30, when each of the Semi-Finalists will be "presented" and discussed by their "Champions," a group of leaders of healthcare service, information and medical technology firms, who will make the difficult decision of selecting just three Finalists in each of the three ABBY Award categories. These nine Finalists will then present before a live audience at the 10th Annual Innovations in Healthcare^SM Awards Event, which will take place at the Westin South Coast Plaza Hotel, in Costa Mesa, on April 23. Based on each Finalist's live presentation of the significance of their healthcare innovation, the audience, composed of senior healthcare and life science executives, will determine the three winners who will take home their ABBY Awards.

Nominated in the Innovative Approaches to the Delivery of Healthcare category:

Oakland’s Alameda County Medical Center’s Rapid Entry and Accelerated Care at Triage (REACT) program has increased capacity, efficiency, and throughput in the emergency department. It is a multi-step process developed on the concept of “the right patient receiving the right care at the right time."

Nominated in the Innovations in Healthcare Information Technology and Telecommunications Technology category:

San Mateo’s Epocrates, Inc. has established a network of more than 500,000 healthcare professionals, including over 25% of U.S. physicians, who rely on its mobile and web-based products for accurate clinical information and health plan drug coverage data, resulting in the reduction of adverse drug events and lower consumer cost.

San Francisco’s Healthline Networks operates Healthline.com, whose unique semantic taxonomy and Medically Guided Search help consumers better navigate the complex world of health information, helping them find their way from search to discovery, from symptom to disease to treatment, or to local physicians and support groups.

San Francisco’s Practice Fusion, Inc. offers an integrated, on-demand EMR service to streamline costly and inefficient manual processes between physicians, patients and healthcare groups associated with claims adjudication, eligibilities, authorizations and sharing medical records.

Nominated in the Innovations in Medical/BioTechnology category:

South San Francisco’s Cytokinetics, Inc. has developed a drug discovery platform for drug candidates to treat cancer and heart disease; evaluating 19 novel drug targets against between 500,000 to 2 million compounds, and synthesizing thousands of active compounds in the process.

South San Francisco’s XDx, Inc.’s mission is to improve patient care by developing molecular diagnostics that translate an individual’s immune status into clinically actionable information. It is one of the first companies to develop and commercialize practical applications based on insights from the Human Genome Project. Its AlloMap® molecular expression testing is a proprietary new method for noninvasively monitoring the immune system by measuring gene expression in a patient’s peripheral blood.

ALL OF THE FACTS ABOUT THE ABBY AWARDS:
10th Annual Innovations in Healthcare^SM Awards and Event Ceremony April 23, 2008 - Westin South Coast Plaza Hotel, Costa Mesa, California 11 am to 6 pm (Exhibits and Networking Lunch through Celebration Reception)

Three 2008 ABBY Awards will be given, which honor innovative companies in the healthcare industry that are currently providing proven ways to lower the cost of providing quality healthcare through their medical or information technology, or innovative approaches to the delivery of healthcare.

Nine ABBY Award Finalists (three in each category) will be selected in three categories: Innovative Approaches to the Delivery of Healthcare Innovations in Healthcare IT and Telecommunications Technology Innovations in Medical / BioTechnology.

ABBY Award Winners will be selected (by secret ballot) by the senior healthcare industry executives attending the Innovations in Healthcare Awards Event, after hearing presentations by the senior executive from each Finalist company.

Attendance is open to ABL Members, as well as non-Member senior executives of healthcare providers and payers, as well as leaders of therapeutic, diagnostic, medical device and healthcare information and services firms.

For more information, please contact Laura Grant at ABL at (714) 245-1425 or visit ABL’s website at http://www.abl.org

Hosted by the Adaptive Business Leaders (ABL) Organization: In April, ABL will celebrate its 10th Annual Innovations in Healthcare^SM Awards Event, honoring healthcare industry leaders whose products and services are not just innovative, but are truly reducing the cost of providing quality healthcare. Past ABBY Award nominees and winners have included companies that have made breakthroughs and transformative advances in medical devices, diagnostics, therapeutics, information technology and electronic solutions, as well as organizations that have applied innovative systems and technology to providing care and coverage, decreasing the numbers of uninsured, and engaging healthcare consumers more actively in their care and health status.

Recent ABBY Award winners have included: Aperio Technologies, Inc.; BeWell Mobile Technology Inc.; Care Level Management; eHealth, Inc.; eV3, Inc.’s Neurovascular Division; FoxHollow Technologies, Inc.; Gen-Probe, Inc.; Health Hero Network, Inc.; I-Flow; IPC - The Hospitalist Company; Kaiser Permanente's eHealth Initiatives; Masimo Corporation; Refractec; Santa Clara Family Health Plan; Silverado Senior Living Center; Sutter Health's eICU; Trizetto Group; and Vocera Communications

About the Adaptive Business Leaders (ABL) Organization
ABL, California’s leading Chief Executives’ Organization, provides its Members with executive leadership coaching through its confidential peer CEO Advisory Board Round Tables and executive learning workshops, network of CEO peers and expert resources. ABL supports the needs of its Member CEOs by providing a place for top-level executives to draw on the experience, knowledge and skill sets of their peers in a non-competing vertical industry personal advisory board - multi-coach approach - setting.

The core component of the CEO Membership experience is the group Round Table meeting. Members meet once a month for a half day with a group of peer CEOs, Presidents, COOs and Division General Managers from non-competing companies all from the same industry (healthcare, technology or life sciences) in a trusted and confidential board room like setting, which allows the executive Members to tackle topics and enhance their decision making and business performance. Topics include: developing and honing new business strategies, new lines of business, best business practices, understanding new trends, developing an effective board of directors, leadership training and executive compensation.

Members also gather several times a year at workshops and conferences to exchange ideas and connect with other chief executives beyond their own CEO peer groups. In effect, ABL Members serve as each other’s business coaches within the Round Tables and are encouraged to connect and leverage their co-Member peers’ particular skills and expertise for additional leadership coaching, one-on-one, outside of their monthly group meeting. In addition, each Round Table’s Facilitator also serves as an objective business advisor, offering executive and industry insights and advice.

ABL's Chief Executive Leadership Development Round Table program is currently being offered in California's greater Orange County, Los Angeles and San Francisco County areas.