Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Pitch

AdhereTx automates patient medication management

By Lynette F. Cornell

AdhereTx Corp.
Headquarters: Waltham
Phone: 888-838-9053
Email: pmeisner@adheretx.com
URL: www.adheretx.com
Founded: 2009
Employees: 4

In the company’s own words:
“Everyone has an aging relative or chronically ill friend who may be on a dozen medications from multiple providers, with additional over-the-counter drugs and supplements adding to what they take on a daily basis. When they move between outpatient and inpatient settings, it is a time-consuming, manual process for healthcare providers to collect and validate all of the patient’s critical medication information. KnowMyMeds is the first web-based solution to automate medication management in the patient’s primary care setting and make it available for use by other providers and systems at transitions of care.”

The technology:
The company has developed KnowMyMeds, a secure web-based software platform to help manage complex medication regimens in older adults. Healthcare providers in the ambulatory setting, such as primary care or home health, can use the software platform to collect patient self-reported information as structured data that can be aggregated and reconciled automatically with claims and electronic health record (EHR) data. A rules engine facilitates a comprehensive medication review of the patient and authenticates data to support medication reconciliation at transitions of care. Clinical trials of KnowMyMeds’s core technology have demonstrated improved patient outcomes and reduced healthcare costs, according to CEO Patricia Meisner. The platform is interoperable with Practice Fusion, a cloud-based EHR system for smaller providers, and with Microsoft Health Vault, which allows AdhereTx to share information with Microsoft’s healthcare enterprise customers.

People behind the company:
Patricia Meisner, co-founder and CEO, was previously the founding CEO of Westborough-based Redtail Solutions Inc., a SaaS-based supply chain company that she brought to profitability. Anne Marie Biernacki, co-founder and CTO, was on the founding team of an e-prescribing startup, Avicenna/Care InSite, which was absorbed into WebMD LLC. She was also the founding CTO of Waltham-based Digiticians LLC, a SaaS-based solution for automated digital home infrastructure management that was acquired by Peak8 Solutions. Meisner and Biernacki are both alumnae of Springboard Women’s Venture Capital Forum. Biernacki was also honored as a Mass High Tech Woman to Watch in 2005. Patricia Neafsey, scientific co-founder, is a professor at the University of Connecticut’s School of Nursing, where she developed the technology behind KnowMyMeds.

The business plan:
To date, the company has been self-funded and has been able to license its academic intellectual property, which it has built into a scalable, secure cloud-hosted commercial platform. Meisner expects the company will reach profitability in 24 months using a combination of equity investment, grants and revenue from early adopters.

The pitch:
The company is seeking $500,000 to begin piloting commercial evaluations with groups that have expressed interest, increase sales and marketing activity and continue to build out the system’s interoperability. The company is also in the process of applying for grants from federal government, including the Veteran’s Administration and private foundations.

The market:
The company is looking to tap into the market of the nearly 50 million Medicare recipients in the U.S., 30 percent of whom meet Medicare eligibility for medication therapy management, said Meisner. The Medicare Prescription Drug Plan compliance part of this market is estimated at $400 million and the extended market for medication management is estimated at more than $1 billion, according to Meisner.