Hospitals, Health Tech

Synapse Medicine adds $28M for its platform supporting proper medication use

European venture firm Korelya Capital led the funding round, Synapse's third in as many years, bringing the total amount the startup has raised to $40 million.

Bordeaux, France-based Synapse Medicine announced Tuesday that it has raised $28 million to scale a technology that helps to build a comprehensive and accurate list of medications that a patient is taking, also known as medication reconciliation.

A robust medical reconciliation process, can help patients avoid dangerous errors that are costly to the overall health system. Synapse’s medication reconciliation platform includes listing the name of drugs, their dosage and frequency as well as the route of intake. Such platforms are crucial in preventing medication errors and in ensuring that patients are taking their medications as prescribed.

To ensure the accuracy of the medications, Synapse’s platform is able to do multiple tasks: fill in the patient record with any clinical issues the patient is facing and contact information for the healthcare team, so that providers can easily be contacted; obtain an exhaustive list of medications a patient takes that’s validated by pharmacies; account for any medications taken or prescribed during a hospital stay; and compare a medication history with the hospital prescription record to detect any possible discrepancies.

Pulling it all together, the platform aims to streamline the medication reconciliation process so physicians can better manage patient care inside and outside the hospital, and as patients move from one care setting to the next.

“At Synapse Medicine, we have developed a medication reconciliation solution that simplifies the process and reduces prescribing discrepancies at each transition,” said Clement Goehrs, the company’s CEO, said in a statement. “This new funding round is an important milestone to further facilitate medication reconciliation and improve patient safety in the U.S.”

For patients recently released from the hospital, proper medication reconciliation can help avoid issues that result in a readmission. Hospital readmissions add up to more than $41 billion in annual healthcare costs in the U.S., and according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 66% of readmissions are related to preventable adverse health events. That include not taking medications as prescribed.

European venture firm Korelya Capital led the funding round, the Synapse’s third in as many years, bringing the total amount raised by the startup to $40 million. Past investors XAnge, MACSF and BNP Paribas Development also contributed to the latest funding round.

“We have been deeply impressed by the founders’ vision and their early understanding of how powerful medication data could protect patients and support all stakeholders in healthcare industries across the world,” said Fleur Pellerin, chairman and co-founder of Korelya Capital, in a statement.

That protection is sorely needed for older patients especially, for whom it’s not uncommon to be prescribed numerous medications to treat multiple chronic conditions. That makes managing medications a challenge, especially given rising hospitalizations for this group during the pandemic. Increasingly, to help address the challenges, technologies are being deployed to track medications after they’re prescribed and ensure they’re taken as prescribed. Companies like Medisafe and Cureatr help with medication management, both seeking to ensure accuracy and reduce the amount of time clinicians spend compiling medication lists.

Synapse’s focus on medical reconciliation has helped it to attract investment. That will be used among other things, to open a new office in New York, where its CEO will move to. It also plans to hire additional staff in New York and other locations internationally from Berlin to Tokyo to bring its total workforce to 150 by the end of the year.

Photo: DNY59, Getty Images

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