WELL Health Provides Update on Cybersecurity Unit and Shareholder Estate Planning by CEO
- Cybersecurity business achieved record revenue and EBITDA since being acquired by WELL Health.
- Iain Paterson has been appointed to the position of WELL's Chief Information Security Officer, from his prior role as CEO of Cycura Data Protection Services.
- Peter Giannoulis, Founder and CEO of Cycura's wholly owned Source 44 subsidiary will now lead combined operations and is expanding the company's capabilities as the need for data protection grows in the healthcare industry.
- Founder and CEO, Hamed Shahbazi provides details on family, tax and estate planning related to WELL shares.
VANCOUVER, BC, July 8, 2022 /CNW/ - WELL Health Technologies Corp. (TSX: WELL) (OTCQX: WHTCF) (the "Company" or "WELL") — a practitioner focused digital health company that is positively impacting health outcomes by leveraging technology to empower healthcare practitioners and their patients globally, is pleased to provide a business update on its cybersecurity business.
WELL's wholly owned cybersecurity businesses, Cycura and Source 44, achieved record revenue in Q2-2022, an increase of 240% compared to the same period a year ago. This growth has been driven by an increasing customer base and by an expansion of services offered to its customers. Both factors are driven by the increased need and complexity of cybersecurity in data-sensitive industries like healthcare.
"We at WELL believe cybersecurity and patient data protection is one of our top priorities" said Amir Javidan, Chief Operating Officer of WELL. "WELL and its subsidiaries have made significant investments in this area, and we look forward to providing more Canadian healthcare practitioners with the country's most comprehensive security solution for outpatient medical clinics."
WELL also announces the appointment of Iain Paterson to the position of Chief Information Security Officer of WELL. Iain Paterson was previously the CEO of Cycura which was acquired by WELL in August 2020. Prior to Cycura, Iain worked under the office of the CISO at eHealth Ontario, which houses the healthcare records of 13M Ontario citizens and acts as the main data share for most of Ontario's hospitals. Prior to that Iain was the Information Security Officer for Trillium Health Partners, one of the largest hospitals in Canada.
Mr. Paterson commented, "I am delighted to lead WELL's considerable and comprehensive information security efforts. We take cybersecurity protection and patient data privacy very seriously across all our businesses and the protection of data security is one of WELL's top priorities as a business as reflected in the Company's recently released ESG report."
Peter Giannoulis, the Founder and CEO of Source 44, which was acquired by WELL in Dec 2020, has been appointed the new CEO of Cycura. Mr. Giannoulis founded Source 44 thirteen years ago and grew it into one of Canada's prominent providers of cybersecurity products and services. Source 44 has been a strong performer in WELL's portfolio and has continued to grow.
Mr. Giannoulis commented, "I am excited to expand my responsibilities and lead Cycura's overall business activities. We have an outstanding opportunity to make a positive impact on the healthcare industry at a sensitive time where we believe there is a lot of patient data at risk in clinics across the country."
Canadian healthcare is becoming an increasingly large target for cyber attacks, with 48% of all security breaches in Canada in 2021 directed at healthcare, a 37% increase from 2020. WELL has seen an increasing number of its customers who are experiencing cyber attacks. While compliant EMR systems generally do a decent job protecting patient data, other software or hardware being used in a clinical environment may not be protected to the same degree. In response, WELL is expanding its Incident Response offering and is actively working with healthcare clinics to implement enterprise-grade cybersecurity solutions through SecureSolutionsNow, a new offering that is assisting healthcare providers across Canada and the USA in protecting personal health information. For more information, please visit securesolutionsnow.com.
Cycura is now also providing customers with both 'hacker' and 'defender' capabilities, giving them the full spectrum of cyber capabilities for customers of all sizes. This offering can also be fully integrated with the rest of WELL's practitioner enablement platforms.
Hamed Shahbazi, WELL's Founder, Chairman and CEO today announced that he has indirectly transferred through Impactreneur Capital Corp., a company controlled by him, 6 million WELL shares to a family trust for family, tax, and estate planning purposes. The transferred shares represent approximately 27.8% of the total WELL securities owned directly or indirectly by Mr. Shahbazi. Mr. Shahbazi is neither a beneficiary nor trustee of the family trust. Also, as part of his overall tax and estate planning strategy, Mr. Shahbazi exercised 1.7 million stock options that were set to expire in the next 12 months.
Hamed Shahbazi commented, "WELL's business is stronger than it's ever been. Despite the current macro-economic conditions our business remains resilient. Upon much consultation with advisors, I have transferred a portion of my WELL shares to a family trust and exercised my expiring stock options strictly for estate and tax planning purposes. I remain one of the largest single shareholders of the Company and continue to be highly aligned for WELL's continued value creation journey."
Per: "Hamed Shahbazi"
Hamed Shahbazi
Chief Executive Officer, Chairman and Director
WELL is a practitioner focused digital health company whose overarching objective is to positively impact health outcomes to empower and support healthcare practitioners and their patients. WELL has built an innovative practitioner enablement platform that includes comprehensive end to end practice management tools inclusive of virtual care and digital patient engagement capabilities as well as Electronic Medical Records (EMR), Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) and data protection services. WELL uses this platform to power healthcare practitioners both inside and outside of WELL's own omni-channel patient services offerings. As such, WELL owns and operates Canada's largest network of outpatient medical clinics serving primary and specialized healthcare services and is the provider of a leading multi-national, multi-disciplinary telehealth offering. WELL is publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "WELL" and trades on the OTCQX under the symbol "WHTCF". To learn more about the Company, please visit: www.well.company.
This news release may contain "Forward-Looking Information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, including, without limitation: WELL's founder, director, and CEO's intentions. Forward-Looking Information is based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties, and contingencies. Forward-Looking Information generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "may", "should", "will", "could", "intend", "estimate", "plan", "anticipate", "expect", "believe" or "continue", or the negative thereof or similar variations. Forward-Looking Information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from the estimated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such Forward Looking Information and, which are not guarantees of future performance. WELL's statements expressed or implied by Forward Looking Information are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and conditions, many of which are outside of WELL 's control, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Forward-Looking is Information qualified in its entirety by inherent risks and uncertainties, including: direct and indirect material adverse effects from the COVID-19 pandemic; adverse market conditions; risks inherent in the primary healthcare sector in general; regulatory and legislative changes; that future results may vary from historical results; inability to obtain any requisite future financing on suitable terms; any inability to realize the expected benefits and synergies of acquisitions; that market competition may affect the business, results and financial condition of WELL and other risk factors identified in documents filed by WELL under its profile at www.sedar.com, including its most recent Annual Information Form. Except as required by securities law, WELL does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, events or otherwise.
SOURCE WELL Health Technologies Corp.
Tyler Baba, Investor Relations Manager, [email protected], 604-628-7266
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