Newtown Resident To Lead Nation’s Largest Fertility Services Company

PURCHASE, N.Y. — IntegraMed America, Inc, the largest fertility-services company in the United States, has announced the promotion of Jay Higham of Newtown to president and chief executive officer of the company, from his previous role as president and chief operating officer.

An 11-year member of IntegraMed’s management team, Mr Higham, 46, moves to the top post at one of the fastest growing, publicly traded health care companies in the country.

From its headquarters in Purchase, IntegraMed offers products and services to patients and medical providers focused on fertility medicine. In its latest earnings statement, the company reported that total revenues for the first six months of 2005 were up 23 percent, contribution to earnings from operations increased 32 percent and net income improved by 54 percent compared to the same period in 2004.

Effective January 1, 2006, Mr Higham assumes the duties of Gerardo Canet, who steps down as the company’s CEO at the end of 2005 but will continue serving as a consultant and chairman of the board of directors.

“I have a big job ahead in living up to Jerry’s legacy,” Mr Higham said. “He led the evolution of IntegraMed from an early-stage company to the corporate leader of a $2 billion industry.”

When Gerardo Canet took over the corporate helm in 1994, IntegraMed was a $12 million organization operating four hospital-based infertility programs in the northeast United States. Mr Canet spent the next decade transforming the company into a physician and patient-service orientation, recruiting some of the world’s leading infertility specialists into a network of 25 of the nation’s top infertility medical practices.

“For the last decade Jay has been the architect of our strategic expansion,” said Mr Canet, who recruited Mr Higham to IntegraMed just months after his own arrival. “First he helped design and build the provider segment of our business, which has put us halfway toward our goal of having a presence in the country’s 50 largest markets. He was also the visionary behind the company’s focused diversification strategy that led to the rapidly growing consumer segment of our business. The company is fortunate to have a leader of his skill to lead it into the future.”

An East Coast native, Jay Higham initially joined the company as its vice president of marketing and development. Prior to joining IntegraMed, he spent 11 years in a variety of executive management roles in health care services organizations including serving as senior consultant at Ophnet, Inc, a specialty medical practice consulting firm focused on operations and business development. One of his children is an 11-year-old son as a result of fertility treatment.

“As a former patient myself, I have a respect and passion for the field that I think is hard to acquire without having gone through the experience personally,” he said.

IntegraMed offers products and services to patients and medical providers focused on the $2 billion fertility industry. IntegraMed provides business services to a national network of fertility centers; distributes pharmaceutical products and treatment financing programs directly to consumers; and operates www.integramed.com, a leading fertility portal.