Medzy recently concluded a $2.3 million round of financing involving Investissement Québec, the private investment group TGIC2, and existing investors.
Investissement Québec participated in the round under the Impulsion PME program, which helps young innovative companies with high growth potential gain access to investment capital at the seed stage. Managed by Investissement Québec for the Québec government, the program has a $50 million budget.
In a press release, Medzy said it plans to use these funds to accelerate its growth in the Canadian market. One of Medzy’s objectives is to create an information “gateway” to allow patient health stakeholders such as doctors and pharmacists to work together to enhance therapeutic follow-up.
Growth sector
Quebec government is enthusiastic about Medzy’s model. “The automated Medzy platform enables pharmacists to free up their time so they can interact more with patients. This is exactly the kind of initiative that the government’s Impulsion PME program was designed to incentivize,” says Lucie Lecours, Minister for the Economy.
For the private investment group, health technologies represent a preferred sector. “We have concentrated our latest investments in health technologies, a promising sector in which we see very high growth potential,” says Michel Noël, member of TGIC2 Limited Partnership.
Noël adds that Medzy has proven its ability to create “a technology that makes a difference and test it successfully in the market.” Sonia Boutin, a pharmacist and Medzy co-founder, says that her company has demonstrated the effectiveness of its business model in 18 months and proved that the demand for online pharmacy services is real. “More than 10,000 people took advantage of this new way of interacting with their pharmacist during the company’s first 18 months. With the help of our new partners we intend to grow,” she adds.
COVID-19 heightens visibility
A telepharmacy platform launched in 2019, Medzy.ca is among the recent initiatives in the online pharmacy sector whose notoriety ballooned in 2020 owing to pandemic-related health restrictions.
On LinkedIn, the pharmacist described Medzy as a “technology platform that is bringing the modern pharmacy to Quebec, Canada and beyond.” Earlier this year, Sonia Boutin spoke to Insurance Portal about the need to modernize the traditional pharmacy. Medzy.ca had just acquired POSO+, a competing platform.
She noted that the pandemic has sparked an explosion in digital commerce, and forced her company to accelerate its technology development. At that point, Medzy had $3 million in investments.
Promoting adherence to dosing
In the release announcing the new $2.3 million funding, Boutin explained how the Medzy platform stands out from the classic model. “With the traditional pharmacy model, customers are responsible for managing refills, for remembering to take medication, and for following up with their doctors for new prescriptions.”
Medzy provides “diligent” therapeutic follow-up, the pharmacist continues. This follow-up is based on a system of reminders and alerts, personalized medication dosing and continuous interaction between patients and their pharmacists, she says.
To demonstrate the importance of Medzy’s approach, she cites an Express Scripts Canada study that found that nearly 70 per cent of patients do not take their medications as directed by their physician, which can affect their health. A closer look at the report shows that 70 per cent of adults with asthma take too little medication or none at all. Among children with asthma, the figure is nearly 64 per cent.
“Pharmacists want to interact more with their patients, but they spend a large portion of their day doing administrative work,” Sonia Boutin says. “By automating pharmacy operations and facilitating interactions with customers, Medzy saves professionals precious time,” she adds. They can then focus on what is most important: caring for patients’ health.
