AiCure, a company that combines video facial recognition and artificial intelligence to confirm that patients have taken their medication has raised a $12.25 million Series A round, according to a company statement. The fundraise underscores the diverse landscape of medication adherence strategies by technology companies.
“Accurately understanding patient behavior through artificial intelligence defines a new category of medication adherence monitoring,” said Adam Hanina, AiCure CEO.
New Leaf Venture Partners led the Series A round. Other participants included Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Tribeca Venture Partners, and Biomatics Capital, established by Boris Nikolic, former Chief Adviser for Science and Technology to Bill Gates.
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The developers of AiCure’s technology have likened it to a personal trainer in a gym working directly with a client to achieve their goals. It involves facial recognition and motion-sensors in a mobile device. It records patients taking their medication and transmits that data back to a clinician through a HIPAA-compliant secure network, who can then confirm that patients took their medication. It can also flag up adverse events or potential barriers and work with patients to overcome them. It is designed to support Directly Observed Therapy.
Prior to securing institutional funding, AiCure had been steadily building traction for its technology. It raised $7 million from NIH competitive innovation grants to support the development of a gamechanging platform for drug research and therapy. In a statement the company said that work helped validate its technology with drug levels in blood samples. Its feasibility was established across a variety of patient populations, including elderly stroke patients and study participants in schizophrenia and HIV prevention trials.
AiCure has also been building a network of pharmaceutical companies and government institution partners as part of their push to optimize treatment models. Payers are also taking a strong interest in AiCure as a means to increase medication adherence and reduce costs in their high-risk, high-cost patient populations.
The move comes as Barton Health became the first health system to prescribe ingestible sensors, initially for patients with hypertension. emocha, a DreamIt Health company from Baltimore, also enlists video from mobile phones to confirm when patients have taken their medication.
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