Medication management solution Medisafe raises $30M

The company works with pharma companies to increase medication adherence

Medication adherence is a big problem, and a bigger one that most people likely think, with roughly half of people not taking their medications as prescribed. That leads to 125,000 annual deaths which were otherwise preventable, and about $300 billion in additional healthcare costs.

Omri Shor had his own experience with this when it came to his own father, which is what led him to to co-found Medisafe, a medication management solution that announced that it raised $30 million in a Series C funding round on Thursday.

"In 2012, we faced a family health emergency. Due to a miscommunication about the medication schedule, my father, a diabetic, accidentally took an extra dose of insulin. It was a mistake which put his life in grave danger. My brother and co-founder, Rotem, and I soon discovered that his experience was far from uncommon," he told me.

"We realized that such mistakes in medication management have created a global health crisis in need of a solution. We decided to build that solution and created Medisafe to help patients manage complex prescription schedules."

Founded in 2012, the Boston-based Medisafe works with more than a dozen top pharma organizations, both large and medium sized, in the US and across the globe, helping them create personalized technology so that people can better manage their medications. The companies, in turn, get insight into the patient's daily behavior.

"The solutions we co-create with our partners free patients from the stress of managing complicated medications, enabling them to lead healthier, safer, and fuller lives," said Shor. 

"We work alongside pharma teams to create both guided patient journeys for those on specific pharma medications, as well as more comprehensive digital drug companions that provide a more immersive experience within our digital platform."

There are now more than 7 million users on Medisafe to, and the company is seeing steady year-over-year growth, especially now because of COVID, which has demonstrated the value in supporting patients digitally through virtual care and leveraging data-driven insights.

Medisafe's funding round as led by Sanofi Ventures and ALIVE Israel HealthTech Fund. Leumi Partners, Menorah Mivtachim and Consensus Business Group, along with previous investors Pitango Ventures, 7Wire Ventures, Merck Ventures, Octopus Ventures, lool HealthTech, Triventures and Ourcrowd, also participated. 

The company says it plans to use the new funding to further expand its end-to-end solutions supporting patients managing medications and accelerate revenues growth. That means adding additional resources to its team to help support growth initiatives, as well as making some strategic investments that will further enhance its capabilities in terms of function, interconnectivity, and new tools.

This capital will also allow used to accelerate the launch of an advanced digital first patient experience.

Along with the funding announcement, it was also revealed that the company has added two new members to its board of directors: Cris De Luca, Global Head, Digital Investments at Sanofi Ventures and David Klein, Co-Founder, Managing Partner ALIVE Israel HealthTech

"Both Cris and David bring a unique perspective to our organization, with extensive experience in helping early-stage companies transform their technologies to become the gold standard in the industry. I’m excited to have both of them as part of our board and helping to execute on our long-term vision."

In the last few years, Shor said, there has been an explosion of growth in the healthtech space, both vertically and horizontally. There has also been more segmentation of healthtech at the same time, as more systems are looking to achieve greater interconnectivity. His expectation, then, is that there is going to be even more collaboration among healthtech, health systems, and payers to create a more connected patient experience.

"Recent moves by Amazon and GoodRx show that there is still a wide-open market to transform medication management, and I see Medisafe as a transformative platform that can help to close the gaps in the ecosystem. We offer a digital entity that makes the medication journey more personal, more connected, more engaging, and more supportive to patients’ daily lives," Shor told me.

"Our vision has always been around helping patients manage medication therapies and the journey that extends beyond diagnosis. I would like to see the potential for Medisafe to be deployed at the time a physician writes a prescription and becomes a complement to all specialty medications."