Diabetes mobile app developer attracts strategic funding

Institutional investors appear to like the prescription app called BlueStar developed by Baltimore-based WellDoc. The company has secured $20 million in strategic financing from the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund and from Windham Venture Partners. The funding, according to a press release, will be used to further commercialize the app. "Our new investors share WellDoc's vision of fundamentally changing how people manage their chronic diseases to improve outcomes and reduce costs," said Ryan Sysko, co-founder and CEO of WellDoc. "This investment will help WellDoc launch and commercialize BlueStar, the world's first mobile prescription therapy for type 2 diabetes on a nationwide basis."

Cleared by the Food and Drug Administration in 2010, BlueStar is a mobile prescription app powered by WellDoc's proprietary Automated Expert Analytics System that enables patients to self-manage their diabetes through real-time motivational and behavioral coaching while also providing clinical decision support to their healthcare provider.

"WellDoc's leading-edge, patient self-management platform has the potential to become an integral component in the management of chronic disease," said Maxwell Kahn, managing director of the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund. "We are excited to invest in this prominent mHealth company because the ability to use and transform patient data into actionable information has the potential to substantially reduce healthcare costs and improve outcomes."

 


Topics: Technology & IT