OSF Ventures, the corporate investment arm of OSF HealthCare, is part of a larger group investing in InsightRX, an early stage company in San Francisco that has developed software to individualize treatment based on a patient's underlying biological and pharmacological characteristics. Greatpoint Ventures Innovation Fund acted as the lead investor in the round.
Medicine is typically prescribed for the "average patient" based mainly on weight and age. InsightRX aims to change that by giving clinicians and pharmacists the tools they need to select the right drug and dose for the right patient.
The company's software platform leverages mathematical models, patient demographics, physiological characteristics, genomic data, drug concentrations and biomarkers to get a detailed understanding of a patient's response to different treatment strategies. Its initial work has mostly focused on chemotherapy drugs for children and certain complex antibiotics.
"InsightRX will allow pharmacists to efficiently and safely dose patients prescribed high risk drugs, leading to shortened hospitalization stays and improved outcomes," said Jerry Storm, Senior Vice President of Pharmacy Services at OSF HealthCare. "As population health matures, this technology will allow OSF to target specific patients for gene testing and dose appropriately to decrease adverse reactions."
OSF Ventures was connected to InsightRX thanks to its partnership with Plug and Play, the world's largest start-up platform headquartered in Silicon Valley that connects startups to corporations and invests in more than 100 companies a year.
"We see the potential of InsightRX to revolutionize how drugs are administered to patients world-wide, leading to improved care and limiting side effects that can impact patients for the rest of their lives," said Stan Lynall Vice President of Ventures Investments for OSF Ventures. "Our investment in this company also opens up opportunities to co-develop additional drug dosing modules for the purposes of serving our patients."
It's been a little more than one year since OSF Ventures launched in 2016 to strategically invest in new technology and devices that can transform and improve health care. It's invested in eight companies since its inception.
OSF HealthCare, headquartered in Peoria, is owned and operated by The Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, and consists of more than 18,000 employees in 115 locations, including 11 hospitals throughout Illinois and Michigan. Its physician network employs more than 1,000 primary care, specialist physicians and advanced practice providers. More at http://www.osfhealthcare.org.
OSF Ventures specializes in venture optimization, partnering financially and operationally in companies that improve patient outcomes and reduce costs to health care systems. OSF Ventures is a division of OSF HealthCare. More at http://www.osfventures.org.
InsightRX, based in San Francisco, has developed a cloud-based platform for precision medicine and clinical analytics. The technology underlying the InsightRX platform incorporates the principles of quantitative pharmacology and machine learning to provide a detailed understanding of a patient's response to treatment. More at http://www.insight-rx.com.