This post has been updated from an earlier version.
As digital health company Cohero Health gears up for the commercial launch of its FDA-cleared medical device to do remote monitoring for lung functions, CEO Melissa Manice took a few minutes to give an update on its progress in a phone interview.
Manice served in a number of roles at Mount Sinai Hospital, such as director of operations and as a post-doctoral fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai before co-founding Cohero Health. Mount Sinai Hospital is also one of its strategic partners.
When Investment Rhymes with Canada
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
It has participated in the Startup Health Academy, a program that exceeds most healthcare accelerators by two years and eight months.
“You are an early-stage company for longer than 12 weeks,” Manice commented in reference to the length of most accelerator programs. “I was compelled by the fact that [Startup Health] was location-agnostic, had quarterly summits.” She found its networking support very helpful. “Commercial traction has been tremendous.”
She noted that two metrics where it saw it could have the biggest impact were compliance with treatment plans and insurance reimbursement for helping physicians get a better understanding of how their patients were coping with their chronic conditions. New CPT codes introduced by CMS earier this year meant that physicians could be reimbursed for increased interaction with patients, including how well they are managing their chronic condition, in this case child and adult asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD.
“We thought, ‘What if we built a clinical-grade medical device that could serve as a barometer for lung function?'”
It developed a Bluetooth-enabled device to track when patients use their inhalers and a Bluetooth-enabled spirometer to track lung function. It also produced a patient-facing app that helps users track their data.
Manice observed that health systems are spending a lot of money to support remote monitoring. It has also partnered with the likes of Validic and Apple to support interoperability so that data from its devices can be de-siloed and viewed in context with data from other devices.
“For us, what we are noticing is if you want to get adoption, you have to ask yourself: How willing are you to be interoperable?”
By the end of the year, it will have four to five health systems as customers, including Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, which is using its device as part of a push to add COPD remote monitoring capabilities to its mediation adherence center.
Although pharmaceutical companies are an interesting market as well, Manice said Cohero views this segment as an area it will be better prepared to target when its business is more mature.
“The pharmaceutical industry is a key player for us, but at the end of the day we’re focused on being a holistic patient tool which can be a diagnostic tool; that’s supported by the interest [in our product] from health plans. Pharma is interesting but they need to see a lot of user traction before they consider partnerships.”
Earlier this year, Cohero it raised a small round of funding from Zaffre Investments, the venture arm of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and BioAdvance, a life science investor in the suburban Philadelphia that is also making digital health investments that reflect its mission. Manice said it plans to raise a larger round next year as it gets closer to its launch date — the second quarter of 2016.
