A Savannah-based healthcare company that has developed a way to take life-saving approaches out of medical research labs and into today’s lifestyles is gearing up for a national debut in January that its backers expect to take it to 140 U. S. cities and, eventually, into a public company.

INTER_XVENT^USA Inc. is a two-year-old corporation that brings together cutting edge physicians and the financial backing and business expertise of the corporate world to make available a program designed to reduce people’s risk of heart disease and stroke.

On the medical side, the goal is to cut deaths from cardiovascular disease.  On the business side, it’s to form a profitable company whose product is a workable, scientific program of behavior modification, which can save employers significant portions of medical expenses from this highly preventable ailment.

“I believe in three years INTER_XVENT will be a household name, just like Nike and Coca-Cola,” said Dr. Neil F. Gordon.

The medical expertise stretches from the East Coast to the West Coast.  The Savannah-based physician is the founder, chairman, CEO and president of INTER_XVENT ^USA.  Joining him on the company’s Board of Directors is William L. Haskell, PhD., a professor of medicine at Stanford University in California and a founder and deputy director of the Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention.

Joining them on that board is Harold E. Wright, a man whose credentials are from Wall Street, not medical school.  He was a founder and principal in two public companies well known within their industry – Extended Stay America, Inc. and Homestead Village, Inc.  His Homestead involvement ran from 1989-94 with financial partner Security Capital Property Trust.  In 1994, he started Extended Stay America with former Blockbuster Video chairman H. Wayne Huizenga and its president, George D. Johnson.

“He invested in the company early on, and his expertise is in national rollouts,” Gordon said.

INTER_XVENT ^USA is best known locally for its joint venture with the St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System, for which Gordon works as medical director of the Center for Heart Disease Prevention.  The INTER_XVENT program is available to the health system employees, and 12 other major local employers signed up earlier this month through a combined operation.  It operates six YMCA-based sites, as well as hospital-based versions and a kiosk at Savannah Mall.  It is also a free-standing operation with separate relationships elsewhere – a joint venture with Emory Healthcare that will take it to Atlanta and elsewhere in the state; a license agreement with Broward Hospital District in Fort Lauderdale, FL., which has some 6,000 employees; and agreements in various stages with Vanderbilt University, the Medical College of Ohio, New Heart, Inc. in New Mexico, and William Beaumont Hospital in Detroit.

Meanwhile, an internet-based component of the program is being field-tested by a leading Fortune 500 company, Gordon said.

The retail cost of the INTER_XVENT ^USA program is $360 a year, but group buying power through employer health plans can drive the cost down to as low as a capitated $108 per employee, which is covered by the participating employer.  That cost compares to other lifestyle modification programs that can cost up to $7,000 a year, he noted.          “ I learned this early on in my career – if you can’t make it financially viable, it won’t work,” Gordon said.

What is this program?  In essence, it is a way to get what was proven to work in medical labs into the hands and lifestyles of people who need it, using special computerized programs and profiles, recorded messages, supporting literature and mentoring.  At the core of the program is the concept of teaching one concept at a time, then allowing time for mastery and moving on to another concept.  The gradual progression leads participants through a variety of modules on nutrition, exercise and stress reduction, all individualized based on responses to a detailed health survey and medical test results.