BrightInsight raises $40M to build a digital platform for medtech and biopharma

The company will use the new funding, in part, to expand to Europe and Asia

While the healthtech space in general is becoming increasingly digitized, the same cannot be said for the life sciences and medtech spaces. Part of the reason for that it's a long and expensive process, taking years and potentially tens of millions of dollars, due to the regulatory hurdles that they operate in.

BrightInsight is solving this problem by providing a platform that "serves as the underlying SaaS platform for biopharma and medtech companies to launch regulated digital health products, including connected combination products, SaaMD, apps, and more, quickly and confidently," Kal Patel, MD, the company's CEO and co-founder, told me. 

"We solve this problem for our customers by having a pre-built, robust platform that meets the rigor that biopharma and medtech companies require, across security, privacy, quality and regulatory requirements," he said.

BrightInsight's solution has caught on with investors, as the company announced a Series B funding round of $40 million led by Insight Partners. Series A investors New Leaf Venture Partners and Eclipse Ventures also participated, bringing its total funding to date to $65 million.

Launched in 2018, BrightInsight's platform includes features such as connected combination products and medical devices, algorithms, Software as a Medical Device (SaaMD), dosing calculators, and apps, all of which are designed to make it faster, and cheaper, for its customers to digitize.

"The platform can enable our customers to drive increased patient adherence and engagement across therapeutic areas, and we have active projects in diabetes, respiratory, oncology, ophthalmology, obesity, hematology, immunology, neurology and more," Patel explained.

BrightInsight currently works with the world’s largest biopharma and medtech companies, such as Novo Nordisk, AstraZeneca, Roche and CSL Behring.

For example, BrightInsight worked with Roche to develop a digital dosing calculator to treat patients with Hemophilia A, while Novo Nordisk has partnered with the company to develop innovative solutions for diabetes patients. AstraZeneca, meanwhile, selected the BrightInsight Platform to support their digital health solutions at scale while maintaining compliance with privacy, security and regulatory requirements.

"We save our clients time and money. Before BrightInsight, our customers had no choice but to try and build their own custom platform from the ground up, with a large consultancy for instance. This could take up to two to three years and cost between $10 and $20 million, and that’s only for one product in one region," said Patel.

The BrightInsight Platform was selected as Google Cloud’s Technology Partner of the Year for Healthcare for the past two years. It was also selected as the “Best IoT Healthcare Platform” in the 2019 MedTech Breakthrough Awards, was featured as the cover story for CIOReview Magazine’s “20 Most Promising Biotech Solution Providers 2019," and was included in The Journal of mHealth's “2020 Global Digital Health 100.”

The new funding will be used to grow the BrightInsight team, which currently has 80 employees, specifically overseas: the company is expanding its U.S. and international teams, including for new regional Customer Delivery Centers in London as well as in Asia, specifically in China.

"These regions are important to our customers and have some exciting developments occurring in the biopharma space," Patel explained. 

The funding will also allow BrightInsight to invest more in its platform , including its analytics functionalities, so that its customers can drive more valuable insights faster. It will also launch new, pre-built software assets that will allow its customers to enhance and accelerate their digital clinical trials.

Along with the funding, it was also announced that Peter Sobiloff, Managing Director at Insight Partners, has joined the company's Board of Directors. The board also includes Vijay Lathi, Managing Director at New Leaf Partners; Justin Butler, Partner at Eclipse Ventures; and John Carlson, President of Health Solutions at Flex Medical Solutions, which is also an investor in BrightInsight.

"Insight Partners is the premier global investor in scaling enterprise software companies. Peter Sobiloff led the firm’s investment in Medidata in 2004 and was on the board through IPO. His experience will be critical as we scale our platform and customer innovations," said Patel.

Ultimately, BrightInsight's vision is to transform patient outcomes globally by bringing the power of digital technology to healthcare.

"The BrightInsight Platform is the underlying secure infrastructure that enables the connected apps, devices and digital health products that the world’s leading healthcare companies are deploying. These solutions that will transform healthcare can’t operate without a secure and regulatory compliant backend like BrightInsight," Patel said.

"We are constantly inspired by the apps, algorithms, connected combination products, dosing calculators and more that our customers are developing on top of BrightInsight that will truly change the way patients manage their diseases and the way providers prescribe or monitor their patients."