A Boston private equity firm recently invested $3 million in HealthPrize Technologies, a Norwalk-based digital health solutions company that motivates patients to take their prescribed medications.
HealthPrize officials said the investment will contribute to the expansion and growth of the company’s online and mobile-based software programs. Mansa Capital, the investor, has the option of increasing funding by $2 million through July 31, 2015.
HealthPrize, founded in 2009, sells software programs specifically tailored to different medical conditions to global pharmaceutical companies. The plan is to expand its vendors to include insurance companies, the retail pharmacy market and self-insured employers.
“We motivate people to stick with their prescription medications by rewarding them for engaging with our website and refilling their prescriptions,” said Katrina Firlik, chief medical officer and co-founder of HealthPrize. “We have different programs for diabetes and hypertension. We work with individual pharmaceutical companies and sell the software service to them, which is free to the patients.”
Non-adherence to prescriptions has posed an economic and health crisis nationwide, Firlik said. The New England Health Institute in 2009 released a report that estimated $290 billion in medical expenses is dispensed each year because people don’t take their prescribed medications. The company said the benefit to employers in using its programs is that they’ll be dealing with fewer health care costs from their employees.
“The problem has been here forever, but in recent years, the economic impact and the impact on people’s health has been felt,” Firlik said.
