H1, a startup pulling together information on healthcare professionals, recently closed a $100 million funding round led by Altimeter Capital. The startup plans to use the funds to build out its network of clinicians and researchers, as well as to develop new features and hire more staff.
New York-based H1 has some similarities to social networking site Doximity in that health systems, pharmaceutical companies and medical device companies use it to find information about clinicians. However, H1 is more focused on the research side of healthcare.
“No other company can match the volume and quality of global healthcare data H1 has, and as a result no one can match the insights we surface,” H1 Co-Founder and CEO Ariel Katz said in a news release. “The next phase of our growth will be focused on helping healthcare organizations harness our network for better decision making.”
The company has populated about 10 million profiles with information about clinicians and researchers. For example, it has built a tool for health systems to identify providers, and a targeting feature for medical device sales.
More recently, it built out a feature for pharmaceutical companies to get information about physicians or clinical trial sites. For example, a company could pull together information on languages spoken by their physician investigators, or whether a clinical trial site had needed equipment. H1 got the idea after a pharmaceutical company was asking how diverse their physicians were for a major clinical trial, Katz said.
Although H1 to date has been more focused on features for healthcare and pharma companies, it has also started to add features for individual clinicians, allowing them to add to their profiles, and look for peers to collaborate with or clinical trial opportunities.
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.
Some of its customers include Columbia, UPenn, and seven of the top 10 pharma companies.
Photo: Topp_Yimgrimm, Getty Images
