Israeli startup MediSafe took top honors at this year’s Health 2.0 Startup Champions, impressing Silicon Valley with its mobile-based platform and reminder system to address medication adherence, the $290 billion problem that is increasingly a top priority in healthcare.
The award was part of Health 2.0’s Traction, which isn’t a pre-seed contest but instead a competition between companies in the Series A range, between about $2 million and $12 million.
MediSafe is essentially a mobile device medication reminder used between family members and caregivers. It says its users have an average medication adherence rate of 86 percent, compared to the 50 percent average adherence figure for the general population, cited by both the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control.
Close to 100 companies applied to this competition, and MediSafe showcased its traction in front of industry leading investors to win in the consumer-facing track.
MediSafe offers its platform on Android, including the Android smartwatch, and Apple devices, and will soon expand it to a web-based platform, text, email and connectivity to wearables & connected devices.
MediSafe has been downloaded for free in Google Play and the iTunes App Store over 900,000 times, reminded users to take over 65 million doses and been viewed by users hundreds of millions of times.
Scores of digital health startups and established companies alike are looking to improve medication adherence, among them HealthPrize and insurers working with data analytics such as AllazoHealth.
