IN MEMORIAM Philip F. Jacobus | April 9, 1954-August 23, 2026

Philip “Phil” F. Jacobus, founder and CEO of DOTmed.com and publisher of HealthCare Business News, as well as president of Owen Kane Holdings Inc., died unexpectedly on Sunday, August 23, at the age of 72.

MD Publishing President John Krieg is among thousands of individuals shocked by the news.

“Phil has been a real force in our industry since I started 30 years ago. His entrepreneurial spirit and vision set the tone for the field and were groundbreaking in many ways,” Krieg shared. “I always enjoyed our conversations about the industry. He left an indelible mark, was truly one of a kind, and will be sorely missed.”

Philip was born and raised in Kane, a town in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania. He graduated from Kane High School in 1972 and earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Pittsburgh. His ambitions were as large as his hometown was small, and upon graduating, he went to New York City.

Even that metropolis was too constricting to contain his ideas, so he went to China with his first foray into medical equipment technology, heading the China Business Development Group (CBDG). Doing business there was complex, and for 1977, still very unorthodox. But people there recognized his sincerity, which came across in any language, and CBDG was a success. It’s hard to picture now, but Phil sold China its first MRI system, according to his official obituary.

“That set a pattern, and he would later bring the same earnest goodwill to his business dealings around the world, including Russia, where he similarly helped build the country’s very first proton therapy system in St. Petersburg through his investment company, Owen Kane Holdings,” the obituary adds. “By that time he’d built a new company in a pioneering realm, where business done online and in the real world meshed seamlessly. This was DOTmed.com. It was the turn of the century and the ‘dot com boom’ occupied everyone’s thinking. People were beginning to get used to hearing the term ‘dot-this-or-that,’ and so he and his colleague devised the name DOTmed.com, which could be so easily remembered because it fused the company’s concept with its means of access. But what isn’t known about that name is that Phil’s mother had passed away shortly before the company was born. Her name was Dorothy, but people knew her as Dot. And so, DOTmed was also meant to honor her memory,” it continues.

“Philip was such a warm, loving, and special person, and we feel blessed to have known him. We will always cherish the beautiful memories and the love and affection he had for all of us,” Ajay and Usha Goel wrote in an online guestbook accompaning the obituary.

“My sympathy is with Barbara and family. Growing up in the same neighborhood in Kane I will always remember Phillip as a very interesting, kind and caring person. A big thanks goes out to what he did in the medical field!” wrote Ann Holmes Chapman.

IAMERS President Diana Upton shared that Phil was a founding member of IAMERS. She said he had a wealth of knowledge.

“In addition to being a dear friend, Phil was a great supporter of IAMERS. He was a contributing member who came to most of the IAMERS meetings. He had great knowledge of our industry both domestically and internationally,” Upton shared via email.

The family asked that expressions of sympathy be made in the form of contributions to a scholarship in Phil’s name.

The complete obituary is available here.