ZappRx secured an added $1 million for its seed financing round, bringing to $2.2 million the total funds it has raised to date. The recent funding was led by Atlas Venture and was participated in by GlaxoSmithKline's venture arm SR One. Terry Meguid, David Hamamoto, Sean Trigony and physicist James Glimm also supported the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based firm.
ZappRx is a mobile platform that automates the process of prescription management. Its secure and collaborative online platform revolutionizes how specialty medications are managed. Patients are able to get their medications more quickly as they and physicians and pharmacists can enter, update, submit and confirm information concerning specialty prescriptions, a statement about the funding said.
Proceeds from the funding round will be utilized to continue to build out the company's platform for prescription processing so that the needs of the specialty pharmacy segment can be addressed. ZappRx said that specialty pharmaceuticals in the US cost $80 billion in 2012 and is set to rise by 67% next year. Although there is only a low volume of patients that are on specialty medications, they comprise over 30% of the total drug spent, the statement said.
This is the first investment of SR One in the healthcare IT space after spending a couple of years studying the newest innovations in the segment. SR One Managing Partner Jens Eckstein said in the statement, "As an evergreen fund backed by GSK, a major manufacturer of specialty medications, we are acutely aware of the high cost associated with manually processing specialty orders. We believe ZappRx has the ability to alleviate these inefficiencies. As an investor who strongly identifies with this problem, we want to be part of the solution."
ZappRx said it will be unveiling major strategic partnerships it has forged with specialty pharmacies and pharmaceutical manufacturing firms in the next few months for its market launch with its first clients.
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