Health IT, Hospitals

Comic book maker raises $1.5M to use superheroes to explain food allergies, transplants, swine flu

Even as healthcare organizations develop patient engagement tools to help adults as they struggle to […]

Even as healthcare organizations develop patient engagement tools to help adults as they struggle to understand and manage their medical conditions, some think the pediatric population has been overlooked. A comic book series to make medical conditions and concepts from asthma and cancer to clinical trials more accessible to young people has raised $1.5 million towards a $5 million target, according to a Form D with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

London and New York-based Medikidz was founded by Dr Kim Chilman-Blair and Dr Kate Hersov. They worked in pediatrics and were frustrated by a  lack of health education content for young patients that could hold their attention and make their condition more accessible to them. They founded the company in 2009.

The stars of the comic book series are superheroes from outer space, each of whom has a medical specialty. They hail from a planet that resembles the human body. The theme in the series is to familiarize children with their own body, the impact of certain conditions and how they can be treated. Content for the publications comes from professional medical writers and doctors and is peer-reviewed by consultants in the relevant area, according to the website.

It also produces comic books designed to help children understand a parent’s or grandparent’s condition such as melanoma, breast cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

In addition to comic books, the website includes a medical encyclopedia under development. It is divided into three sections. MediHealth explains medical terms. MediMeds provides a description of drugs and MediTests is intended to walk users through medical tests. See samples of the comic books on the company’s YouTube channel.

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