Recent Announcements

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sermo Closes 26.7 Million in Funding Led by Legg Mason Capital Management

Investment to Evolve Online Community for Physicians

Cambridge, Mass., September 12, 2007 — Sermo, the nation’s largest online physician community, announced today it has secured $26.7 million in Series C financing, led by investor Legg Mason Capital Management who was joined by Allen & Company LLC. Other investors in the company include Longworth Venture Partners and SoftBank Capital. To date, nearly 30,000 physicians from all 50 states in over 35 different specialties have joined this groundbreaking community to improve patient care.

“Sermo has created a new business model that leverages the power of collective wisdom to corroborate physician observations in a way never before possible,” said Michael Mauboussin, Chief Investment Strategist for Legg Mason Capital Management. “This has resulted in a unique information exchange that provides a win-win for both physicians and outside organizations interested in learning from the insights of the medical community. We are thrilled to be joining Sermo’s current investors to support this new model of interaction and to help it grow moving forward.”

Already a powerful voice for physicians, the Sermo community is growing dramatically, with nearly 2,000 new physicians joining every week. With this latest investment, Sermo will accelerate its development efforts to better handle the influx of new content into the community and continue to improve the site experience for physicians. It will also focus on creating new opportunities to give physicians a greater voice in shaping the future of healthcare. The company recently entered into agreements with both the American Medical Association and the Food and Drug Administration.

“As the momentum continues to build on Sermo so does our dedication to delivering the features and functionality that enables our community to have an influence on the future of healthcare, whether it’s through influencing the commercial markets, healthcare policy through the AMA, or patient safety through FDA,” said Founder and CEO, Daniel Palestrant, MD. “This funding is a crucial step toward putting the technology in place that will allow us to continue to deliver the resources and features our community of physicians is demanding.”

“Sermo is impacting the broader healthcare ecosystem faster than anyone thought possible,” said Steve Murray, Partner, SoftBank Capital. “This is a testament to Sermo’s execution and the physicians’ acute recognition for the importance of this medium. The significant progress and potential enormous impact of Sermo allowed Legg Mason to join as the latest investor and we look forward to working with them and Sermo to help the community achieve its high potential.”

NOTE: Allen & Company LLC also provided investment banking services in this transaction.

About Legg Mason Capital Management
Legg Mason Capital Management is one of America’s leading equity managers. It manages assets for clients around the globe including: corporations, public funds, various government entities, endowments, foundations, and individual investors. Clients can invest through separately managed accounts, subadvised funds, and Legg Mason sponsored mutual funds. Headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, Legg Mason Capital Management is recognized for its distinct value investment process and long history of outperforming clients’ benchmarks.

Since 1982, with the introduction of Legg Mason Value Trust, Legg Mason Capital Management has distinguished itself by applying the principles of value investing. Today, it offers investors six equity capabilities: Value Equity, Mid-Cap, All Cap, Growth Equity, Opportunity, and American Leading Companies. Legg Mason Capital Management’s investment team is comprised of investment professionals who provide portfolio management and equity analysis for $70.9 billion in separate account and pooled assets (as of 6/30/07).

Legg Mason Capital Management is a subsidiary of Legg Mason, Inc. (NYSE:LM).

About Sermo
Launched in September 2006, Sermo is already the largest online physician community, ever. Sermo’s Web-based platform provides a medium for physicians to aggregate observations from daily practice then — rapidly and in large numbers — challenge or corroborate each other’s opinions, accelerating the discovery of emerging trends and providing new insights into medications, devices and treatments. On Sermo, physicians exchange knowledge with each other the minute it is learned and gain potentially life saving insights from colleagues as they happen instead of waiting to read about them in conventional media sources. Sermo harnesses the power of collective wisdom and enables physicians to discuss new clinical findings, report unusual events, and work together to improve patient care in a way never before possible. Through its unique business model, Sermo is free to physicians and has no advertising or promotion. Based on a system of information arbitrage, Sermo allows healthcare organizations, financial services firms and industry analysts to access the community’s collective knowledge on a subscription basis.

Press Contact:
Claire Spina-Russell
PerkettPR for Sermo
P: 781-842-3381
E: sermo@perkettpr.com