The pandemic has accelerated a shift to digital healthcare, and this Durham startup is reaping the rewards.
Pattern Health, a Durham-based mobile health startup that offers software to track patients’ progress and medication adherence, says it’s raised $1.5 million in new funding to scale operations as demand spikes for digital healthcare programs.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed how we deliver and receive healthcare and has proven to be a catalyst for digital health adoption by both providers and consumers,” its CEO and co-founder Ed Barber.
Pattern Health’s platform, he says, is being used in a wide range of use cases, such as researching new approaches for at-home testing for COVID-19, developing advanced algorithms to help identify patients who may be at higher risk, and protecting patients by monitoring them remotely.
Founded in 2012, this is the company’s first round of funding.
Investors included Cofounders Capital and The Launch Place.
“The traction that Pattern Health has seen recently shows the customer demand for an easier way to build digital health programs,” said Cofounder Capital’s principal Tobi Walter.
“We are excited to join a team of serial entrepreneurs that have already built a very sizable business for their next stage of growth.”
Pattern Health said the funds would go towards “investing in product, engineering, sales, marketing, and business development.“
The company is hiring and has a number of current open positions. It also expects to be adding more new positions over the coming weeks and months in almost all functional areas, including engineering, marketing, sales, business development, and customer support.
“In short, we will be using the funds to accelerate our growth,” Barber says.
A personal mission
Barber says he was inspired to start the company because of his own experiences living with Type 1 diabetes. Diagnosed at age five, he grew up learning first hand the difficulties of using antiquated technology to manage his condition.
So he joined forces with co-founders Ed Holzwarth and Tim Horan, two other experienced mobile and tech entrepreneurs, to build a mission-oriented company that would be focused on the “double bottom line” — strong growth and social impact.
Pattern Health says its no-code platform enables researchers and clinicians to create condition-specific digital health programs quickly and economically, collect data more rapidly and generate evidence.
In addition, customers using the platform to research and develop new programs own the IP developed on the platform.
“As research is validated, our marketplace solution streamlines the process of translating the IP into highly scalable real-world solutions that can be licensed for use by third parties under an app-store-like revenue-share model,” Barber says.
To date, the company’s solutions have been licensed by a network of customers, including 11 of the top 20 academic medical centers in the United States, six of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies globally, and “a growing number of commercial healthcare companies.”
“We will continue our focus growing the network of academic medical center, research, and commercial customers licensing our platform to power their research and innovation programs while expanding the number and types of programs that can be licensed through our marketplace,” Barber says.
“[It will make it] simpler and easier for program authors and partners to reach and impact more people with their programs.”
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
