By: Sara Warden
2 min read January 2020 — Innovation in Philadelphia’s healthcare industry has long been recognized as exemplary, and it served as a focal point of Philly’s B.PHL Innovation Fest held in September. Recent developments show that healthcare pioneers were right to bet on Philadelphia.
It’s only a week in and already 2020 has been a big year for healthcare in Philadelphia. Healthcare software company Repisodic announced this week it has raised $1.75 million from a private stock sale led by VC company American Enterprise Ventures. Repisodic was nominated among just 17 early-stage companies that received a total of $3 million in pre-seed funding from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania in 2018.
The technology produced by the company is based on patient discharge care and was catalyzed by the “discharge planning rule” enacted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in November, which mandated that patients “be in the driver’s seat, playing an active role in their care transitions to ensure seamless coordination of care,” according to CMS Administrator Seema Verma.
Repisodic allows patients to access a list of post-acute care providers in a seamless and easy way, with search functions tailored to the patient’s specific medical records and requirements. “The sheet of paper (given to post-acute care patients by hospitals on discharge) may have names and addresses and phone numbers, but not a whole lot of other information,” Mike Cwalinski, the company’s co-founder and CEO, said to Philadelphia Business Journal. “We help patients make better and faster decisions at the time of discharge.”
Elsewhere, Philly-based gene therapy company Spirovant Sciences was last week acquired by Japanese pharma company Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma in a $3 billion transaction. “(Sumitomo) is incredibly committed to Spirovant and to gene therapy, particularly the work going on here in the Philadelphia area,” said Joan Lau, Spirovant’s CEO, in an interview with Philadelphia Business Journal. “They will be spending time here to get to know the area more intimately.”
Spirovant’s gene therapies aim to repair mutations that come as a side-effect from cystic fibrosis and cause difficulties with breathing. Earlier in the year Spirovant had been acquired by New York-based Roivant, which sold its ownership stake in five companies – one of which was Spirovant – to Sumitomo. “I think it’s a testament to our underlying technology from the University of Iowa and CHOP,” said Lau when asked about being acquired twice in one year. “We’ve been able to show strong preclinical data.”
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