St. Petersburg health tech firm lands $5M investment

RxLive, a St. Petersburg-based health tech company whose platform helps reduce medication mismanagement, has raised $5 million in a Series A funding round that was led by Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH).

According to a news release, RxLive specializes in medication management software that has been shown to reduce patient drug costs by hundreds of dollars, decrease hospital admissions by 27% and cut readmissions by 26%. The company’s research has found that approximately 50% of patients fail to take medications properly, leading to $500 billion of wasted health care spending annually and the deaths of 140,000 seniors.

The company’s platform, the release states, also capitalizes on the pandemic-driven rise of telemedicine, offering telepharmacy services that can quickly connect patients to clinical pharmacists. The firm also uses data analytics to identify patients who are most at risk for medication mismanagement.

“For too long, the pharmacist has been seen simply as the person behind the drugstore counter where people pick up their prescriptions, not as a key piece of a patient’s care team,” RxLive co-founder and Chief Pharmacy Officer Dr. Kristen Engelen states in the release.

She adds, “But now, with the move to value-based care, the overnight adoption of telemedicine and growing importance and emphasis on managing pharmacy spending, RxLive is putting clinical pharmacists back where they belong. We give patients the one-on-one medication expertise and attention they need to improve quality of life, and the technology and services health care organizations need to improve outcomes.”