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Cardinal Health Sponsors Fourth Annual Small Business Procurement Conference

Dublin, Ohio, Nov. 12, 2004 – More than 100 representatives from small, minority, and women-owned businesses from across the country attended Cardinal Health’s fourth annual Small Business Procurement Conference to learn about opportunities for diverse small businesses to serve as Cardinal Health’s supply partners and to help fulfill the company’s procurement needs. Cardinal Health, Inc., is the leading provider of products and services supporting the health care industry.

Held at The NorthPointe Conference Center in Lewis Center, Ohio, this year’s conference titled “Helping small businesses to think big” brought together Cardinal Health business representatives, suppliers and customers to identify additional opportunities for partnering with the small business community.

"We were really pleased with both the turnout and the quality of the companies that attended this year’s conference. Each year we host this conference, we find companies more able to supply and service a company the size and scale of Cardinal Health, and companies that have spent time doing their homework to find the right connecting point with us,” said Kathy Benn, vice president of Supplier Diversity for Cardinal Health. “Our goal is to increase the number of ‘successful matches’ and the actual commerce driven by the conference each year.”

Cardinal Health customers also attended the conference to learn more about the company’s Supplier Diversity program and how it can best support customers’ own initiatives to drive spending opportunities with small, woman, veteran and minority-owned companies.

"Supplier outreach efforts like our annual Small Business Procurement Conference help us connect with viable small businesses that help us achieve our mission of providing high quality, cost effective products and services to our health care customers,” said Mark Hartman, executive vice president of Strategic Sourcing for Cardinal Health. “Linking arms with Strategic Sourcing for this conference also ensures that small businesses will be well represented in the larger spend categories for Cardinal Health. Our supplier base should reflect the same diversity as our customer base; this is one way to ensure that we stay focused on that mission.”

The two-day conference kicked-off with Corris Boyd, vice president of Triad Hospitals, discussing the importance of embracing supplier diversity and incorporating supplier diversity programs into core values and business objectives.

The conference included several industry-related workshops designed to further educate attendees on relevant supply chain, business development, finance, and strategic alliance opportunities, as well as information on selling to federal and private sector hospitals. Attendees also met with Cardinal Health representatives in one-on-one “pre-matched” procurement appointments where attendees could discuss potential sourcing opportunities and partnerships.

“The conference was a tremendous opportunity for small business owners, like me, to learn many new facets of business through exposure to Cardinal Health’s business model and, at the same time, to network with other small business owners who attended the conference,” said Adele S. Busch, a conference attendee representing The Filing Company.

Also during the conference, Cardinal Health welcomed PROTEAM resources and Ohio Full Court Press to its mentor protégé program. The Cardinal Health mentor protégé program, which leverages the company’s capabilities to help minority owned-and-operated small businesses grow, gain new capacity, or enter new marketplaces, is designed to provide business development support and assistance to qualified small business supply partners.

About Cardinal Health
Cardinal Health, Inc. (www.cardinalhealth.com) is the leading provider of products, services and technologies supporting the health care industry. Cardinal Health develops, manufactures, packages and markets products for patient care; develops drug-delivery technologies; distributes pharmaceuticals and medical, surgical and laboratory supplies; and offers consulting and other services that improve quality and efficiency in health care. Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, Cardinal Health employs over 55,000 people on six continents and produces annual revenues of more than $50 billion. Cardinal Health is ranked No. 17 on the Fortune 500 list and is named one of the best U.S. companies by Forbes magazine for 2004.

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