Pharma

By  Jonah Comstock 08:56 am August 28, 2014
Bayer HealthCare, a German pharmaceutical company, has underscored pharma's growing interest in mobile health by starting a new health accelerator. Grants4Apps, which started last year as a crowdsourcing initiative, was releaunched as an accelerator at an event earlier this week. The commitment on Bayer's part is pretty significant: they'll be offering 50,000 euro (about $65,000) to each of the...
By  Jonah Comstock 08:09 am August 19, 2014
While Novartis' recent partnership with Google and its longtime relationship with Proteus have indicated that the pharma company has an interest in digital health, a page on the company's website, added this summer, lays out its broad vision and explicit interest in mobile health specifically. The company even has a mobile health strategy lead, Michele Angelaccio, who holds the title of Associate...
By  Jonah Comstock 10:09 am August 12, 2014
Iowa-based TelePharm has raised $2.5 million from venture capitalist John Pappajohn and Bruce Rastetter, president of the Iowa state Board of Regents. The company, which is also a member of the Rock Health accelerator, will use the funds to scale its business, which connects pharmacists to one another and to patients via cloud-based mobile apps. "I think the pharmacists’ position is changing,"...
By  Aditi Pai 09:54 am August 7, 2014
Haifa, Israel-based MediSafe added a birth control pill tracking feature to its medication adherence app this week. MediSafe, which was in Microsoft's Tel Aviv accelerator, offers a cloud-based app system for medication adherence. Patients using MediSafe get a reminder to take their meds on their Android or iPhone app, and are then prompted to record doses when they take them. If they don’t...
By  Aditi Pai 08:40 am August 5, 2014
Proteus Digital Health Proteus Digital Health published a paper on its ingestible sensor that explains the design of the sensor, the safety tests Proteus completed, and the clinical trials Proteus conducted with 412 patients who used the system over 5,656 days. The Proteus digital medicine platform is a medication management and adherence system that includes unique measurement tools, like...
By  Brian Dolan 06:47 am July 29, 2014
Digital medicine company Proteus Digital Health has raised an additional $52 million from undisclosed investors following a whopping $120 million raise the company announced just last month. That brings Proteus' latest round of funding -- its seventh -- to $172 million. By our count the company's total known funding is now close to $400 million, which makes it one of the most-funded, private...
By  Jonah Comstock 05:00 am July 28, 2014
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based flexible electronics company MC10 has embarked on its first public partnership with a pharmaceutical company, Belgium-based UCB. Although many of the details remain undisclosed, the companies have announced that UCB will use MC10's BioStamp technology to pursue new therapies for neurological disorders. "They’re going to combine our devices with their work to...
By  Brian Dolan 09:58 am July 22, 2014
Fogg speaking at SXSW last year Retail pharmacy company Walgreens is bolstering its rewards program by training some of its pharmacists and online customer reps in Stanford psychologist and mobile health expert Dr. BJ Fogg's behavior change methodology, called Tiny Habits. Over the years Fogg has had considerable influence in mobile health through his advisory services to industry, published...
By  Jonah Comstock 06:05 am July 15, 2014
Just seven months after announcing its ambitious contact lens program, Google has announced a partnership with Novartis eye care division Alcon to license its still-largely-theoretical "smart lens" to the Swiss pharma company. "We are looking forward to working with Google to bring together their advanced technology and our extensive knowledge of biology to meet unmet medical needs," Novartis CEO...
By  Jonah Comstock 10:37 am July 14, 2014
When it comes to digital health, pharmaceutical companies tend to be slow and cautious, because of the onerous risks they face from the FDA should they improperly market a drug via the internet or mobile channels. But big pharma recognizes the need to innovate and stay on top of the times as well. That’s why the trend lately has been for large pharmaceutical companies to spin out a smaller group...