Sharecare closed a $25 million funding round to support the development of mobile tools to help individuals optimize their health, according to a company statement. The investment comes just a couple of months after the company, co-founded by physician and TV talk show host Dr. Mehmet Oz and Jeff Arnold, acquired Feingold Technologies.
The majority of the funding, $20 million, comes from a new investor to the company — Wellington Management. Trinity Health invested another $5 million. Since and Oz founded the business in 2010, it has raised $160 million.
Although Sharecare has already rolled out one app using the company’s voice analysis technology — currently restricted to a crowdsourced clinical trial — it’s keen to tap the technology for other products.
In a phone interview with a Sharecare Vice President of Communications Jen Martin Hall, she said the company will use the funding to add 150 staff within the next 12 months, particularly in technology development but also in sales, marketing and customer service support.
She added that it views the tools it is creating not just as servicing the business to consumer market but also the b2b2c markets, particularly where population management solutions are concerned. “That’s obviously a huge focus for health systems like Trinity Health.”
Trinity Health initially invested in Sharecare in 2013, through their participation in the Heritage Healthcare Innovation Fund. In 2014, it launched a system-wide partnership with Sharecare to provide Trinity’s communities and patients with a personalized, localized engagement platform, according to the statement.
In addition to smartphone apps, the company’s also interested in the potential of the Apple Watch and is looking ahead to a time when its technology can work within it.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
“Apple does not currently allow access to the data we would need to analyze fractals (complex patterns) in voice. But from a health and wellness aspect, the watch is something we are very excited about,” Hall said. “What’s exciting for health and wellness developers in particular is the watch forces you to be very simple and forces you to ask hard questions as to what you can add of value to the consumer.”
