The companies that are set to gain the most with healthcare reform are the ones that are making cost cutting doable and improving outcomes. One such health IT company is Medivo which has a cloud-based platform to improve the gap on the physician side between diagnosis of a condition and monitoring of that condition. It is also designed to help patients keep track of their lab results, improve their understanding of their condition and make it easier to communicate with labs and providers.
Medivo has raised $15 million in a Series B round led by Merck Global Health Innovation Fund. It also got venture capital financing from Safeguard Scientifics and Mentor Tech Ventures. It’s using the investment not only to expand the number of chronic condition its platform covers, but it’s also developing more services for users.
In a phone interview with MedCity News, Medivo CEO and co-founder Sundeep Bhan said it wants to deepen its analytics services by hiring 20-30 people including analytics specialists who can help it look at additional health care gaps and conditions. It also wants to add technology staff like programmers and developers to provide enhanced products and services and increase the functionality of its mobile apps.It currently employs about 60.
In a nod to the consumerization of health care, it is building a direct channel on its platform for consumers to access lab tests that will go live in the second half of the year but could not elaborate on details.
A couple of years ago three divisions of the Department of Health and Human Services proposed a rule that would allow direct consumer access to their clinical lab results. In an emailed statement, a spokeswoman from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid said a final rule was expected later this year. “Acquiring a mobile health platform [WellApps] gave us a running start to establishing additional connectivity to patients. We have launched additional services on WellApps since we acquired it,” said Bhan.
He added: “We are becoming more widely known as lab data company and as people learn more about what we do, we’re getting more companies contacting us and partnering with us.”
The company is in the process of expanding its network of laboratories and health monitoring modules, across obesity, rheumatoid arthritis, hepatitis B, HIV, colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, myelofibrosis, multiple myeloma, growth hormone deficiency, osteoporosis, hypothyroidism, and multiple sclerosis.
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.
As of June, Bhan estimated that its users span 15,000 providers and more than 2 million patients. He said it wants to enhance its connectivity with 500 labs. Its growth in the past year has been helped by increased engagements with life sciences companies and a formalized partnership with the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists to deliver Medivo services to its AACE members.
Medivo has doubled its growth year-over-year, according to a company statement. Today marks the close of its second major financing round. In 2011 it raised $7 million.
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