The ability to reach multiple medical professionals at once is the kind of service for which pharma and medical device companies are prepared to pay good money. Skipta is a health IT company that has evolved from its start as a social network of pharmacists to multiple communities of healthcare professionals. The only qualification for participation in the networks is having verifiable medical credentials.
The Lancaster, Pennsylvania company has raised $2.5 million in a Series A round led by Mansa Capital, a new investor, according to a company statement.
In addition to life science companies, drugstores and associations pay to get their message across to the healthcare professionals in Skipta’s social networks. In a phone interview with Skipta marketing director Elizabeth Ciccio, she said the company has begun to add communities focused on disease states, starting with diabetes. She said the funding would be used to add staff and launch 30 more communities by the end of the year, including five more disease states, such as oncology. It currently has 28 communities.
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Since its founder Theodore Search started Skipta in 2009, it has grown into an international community with groups that include veterinarians, nurse practitioners, certified registered nurse anesthetists, primary care physicians, residents in training and physician assistants.
Several other companies have cultivated social networks or insight on how medical professionals use them such as Doximity, Sermo and Medikly,