Seattle-area startup Medsense Health raised $500,000 in new investment to fuel growth of its tech aimed at helping patients and providers with remote medication monitoring.
Founded in 2019, the company develops small motion-detecting sensors that fit on prescription pill bottles, asthma inhalers, eye droppers, and other medicine-related products.
Medsense also runs a software platform to remind patients about their medicine and provide data to providers and pharmacies.
The startup generates revenue from pharmacies, senior living centers, and other health-tech companies that want to integrate Medsense into their own platforms.
Medsense has grown from a few customers to 12 in the past four months, said CEO Matthew Tabakin, who previously founded a sports nutrition company and was a research assistant for Promentis Pharmaceuticals.
Tabakin said medication adherence is a big problem costing the U.S. healthcare industry hundreds of billions of dollars.
“By having access to this real-time adherence data, we enable the clinician to get alerted about non-compliance in real-time,” he said. “They’re able to reach out and engage with that patient, while simultaneously making it easier for the patient to take their medication as prescribed.”
Tabakin said the company’s platform is HIPPA-compliant and has industry-standard privacy policies in place to ensure data is stored and managed properly.
Asked about competition, Tabakin said the company’s sensors help differentiate it from a bevy of other medication adherence startups.
“We’re able to have this one-stop solution that works for all different types of patients — it’s a huge value proposition,” he said. “We’re also able to leverage our AI algorithms from a really small, inexpensive sensor. We have a serious cost advantage compared to our competitors.”
Medsense has raised $2 million to date. The new funding comes from HealthX Ventures, a Madison, Wisc.-based venture capital firm focused on digital health.
The company has five full-time employees and plans to grow headcount.
