Carenet Ranked on BusinessWeek’s Top Inner City 100 List

Innovative Portland-based healthcare communications company named once again one of fastest growing inner city companies in the nation

Portland, Ore. – BusinessWeek Magazine and the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) have ranked Carenet an innovative & award-winning medical and health communications firm 49^th on the 11th Annual Top Inner City 100 list. 2009 is the second consecutive year that Carenet has ranked in the top 100 awardees.

The ICIC was established to recognize the fastest growing companies in America that are based in the “inner city” and provide new business growth potential to their communities. Innovative practices and sustained growth are the predominant traits of the 2009 Inner City 100 award winners. Through an annual national competition, ICIC ranks the 100 fastest-growing businesses in inner city settings. The 2009 award ceremony was held May 20^th in Boston.

Carenet, now a company of Stericycle, Inc., focuses on healthcare communications services to a wide range of corporate and governmental clients involved in the pharmaceutical, medical device, food and beverage sectors. The firm’s expertise in consumer affairs ranges from contact center solutions for consumer affairs and clinical trial recruitment, adverse event reporting, design of disease specific websites and social media strategies directed at consumers and health professionals. These platforms provide clients with creative and tested strategies for interacting with consumers.

The founders of Carenet, David McCarron, MD, FACP, and Kathleen A. McCarron, veteran healthcare professionals– have each worked with the pharmaceutical and food industries for over thirty years within the academic and private sector. Carenet was established in the early 1990’s to fill the void in the telecommunications industry for services focusing solely on health-related products and issues.

“Our staff of healthcare professionals that include physicians, nurses and dieticians, our ability to staff our contact centers with healthcare professional, the enhanced adverse events monitoring and use of social media have enabled us to continue to grow our consumer affairs, patient recruitment business and provide adverse event reporting during product recalls for the protection of the consumer,” says the company’s co-founder , Kathleen A. McCarron.

“We are delighted to celebrate businesses like Carenet that are playing a critical role to revitalize distressed urban communities throughout America,” said Michael Porter, founder and CEO of ICIC and Professor at Harvard Business School. “By creating jobs, income, and wealth for local residents, these high-growth businesses are vivid proof that the most effective way to address economic inequality in America is to equip every community to prosper in the market system. Inner City 100 companies also provide a window into the future where all companies will need to learn to address diverse customers and mobilize diverse workforces.”

2009 ICIC awardees were selected from over 5,000 nominations. Highlights:

• Inner City 100 companies are 34 percent minority-owned. Nationally, just 8 percent of companies with annual revenues over $1 million are minority-owned.
• The 2009 Inner City 100 companies are 18 percent owned by immigrants to the United States.
• 21 percent of the 2009 Inner City 100 are women-owned. Nationally, only 10 percent of companies with over $1 million in annual revenues are women-owned.
• The 2009 Inner City 100 boasts an average workforce that is 53 percent minority employees and 43 percent inner city residents.
• The 2009 Inner City 100 pay an average of over $15.00 per hour to hourly employees and $53,000 per year to salaried employees.

Carenet provides optimal, most cost-effective means for distributing health-related product information to consumers and healthcare providers. Carenet offers:

Contact Center Solutions: Call center, IVR, online and fulfillment
Clinical Trial Recruitment and Retention: Site support, Telecom and Online Screening
Quality and Regulatory Compliance: Adverse event reporting, recall customer care
Healthcare Operators: Medical, Nutritional, Health; Multilingual Expertise
Medical Advisory Boards: Internationally recognized experts
New Media Communications: Web 2.0, blogging, social media and online reputation monitoring expertise as well as web design and support services

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About Carenet Carenet, now a Stericycle Company is a leading medical and health communications company conceived by academic professionals to serve as a singular source for communicating health-related issues to consumers and health professionals. Carenet works with leading pharmaceutical, food and beverage, and other Fortune 500 companies, as well as healthcare organizations, in developing effective communications strategies through consulting, telecommunications, internet and new media resources. Visit Carenet at www.academicnetwork.com Please contact Claudia Johnson @Claudia Johnson.com, 503-799-2220 for more information

About the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City
The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) is a national not-for-profit organization founded in 1994 by Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter. ICIC’s mission is to promote economic prosperity in America’s inner cities through private sector engagement that leads to jobs, income and wealth creation for local residents. ICIC brings together business and civic leaders to drive innovation and action, transform thinking and accelerate inner city business growth and investment.

For more information about the 2009 Inner City 100 list, please contact Julia Ely at (617) 292-2383. The entire list can be found at www.icic.org.