More than 40 seed and early stage companies took to the showroom floor at this year’s mHealth Summit in Washington D.C., which ended Wednesday. Many were sponsored by incubators including StartUp Health and Rock Health. This is one of a series of posts I’m publishing that includes elevator pitches from 10 of the companies I liked.
Health Tap
A Palo Alto, California company, HealthTap has a network of physicians that can answer health questions online or through a smartphone app and receive answers from physicians representing 100 specialties. About 6,000 physicians and 500 healthcare institutions are participating in the service.
It secured $11.5 million in Series A funding led by Mayfield Fund, Mohr Dividow Ventures and Innovation Endeavors headed by Eric Schmidt. It was sponsored in the startup pavilion at the mHealth summit by Startup Health.
“A value proposition for doctors is it’s a free marketing opportunity for them to build their online presence and connect with patients and their peers in their area and throughout the U.S. to a specific health question,” said Alex Gits of HealthTap.
Read about the other nine startups: Above Stress, EnHatch, Meddik, ScriptPad, Force Therapeutics, OrganizedWisdom, Ayogo, Beyond Lucid Technologies and CareSpeak Communications.
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.
