ePatientFinder, an Austin-based digital health startup that uses algorithms to match physicians with potentially life-changing clinical trials for their patients, based on their existing EHR data has raised $8.2 million Series B funding. The latest round led by a technology investor syndicate has increased the company’s total funding to $11M. ePatientFinder plans to use the capital from this latest funding round to fuel the growth of its Clinical Trail Exchange and provider referral network.
Founded in 2013, ePatientFinder provides an innovative Clinical Trail Exchange platform that connects pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers and CROs with a network of clinics, hospitals and ACOs to identify patients for clinical trials that address chronic diseases. The Clinical Trial Exchange is deployed through numerous top-tier EHR and health IT partnerships. Over time,ePatientFinder intends to add additional healthcare providers and EHR partners to the exchange, further accelerating the growth of the referring provider network.
How It Works
With access to millions of patient lives and powered by sophisticated algorithms from EHR data, ePatientFinder uses a three-tier filtering process to help physicians identify and refer patients eligible for clinical trials and newly approved procedures that they likely would not have known about otherwise — with the goal of leaving no patient behind.
After the platform matches physicians with treatments relevant to their patients, the physician provides information about those treatments. The physician then decide which ones to offer their patients. After the physician chooses a treatment, they can run a one-click report to see which of their patients meet the treatment’s criteria.
ePatientFinder’s HIPAA-compliant care team then collects additional eligibility information from the patient on the physician’s behalf and schedules the patient to talk with their physician about the treatment option. Together, the physician and patient decide if the treatment is right for them.
The company is currently working with some of the largest EHR vendors and life-science companies to help identify patients and provide them with the most cutting-edge treatments available. Treatments that are only available in the research domain for diseases like Alzheimer’s, lung cancer and diabetes.
According to ePatientFinder CEO and co-founder Tom Dorsett, an average of 86 percent of patients express interest in opting into ePatientFinder’s clinical trial screening process.
“The additional financing will allow us to further expand patient access to available treatment options through our platform. ePatientFinder’s focus on increasing awareness of clinical trials so that more eligible patients can be enrolled more quickly can accelerate the clinical trials process and potentially save many millions of dollars in recruitment costs that can instead be used to further drug development and research,” Dorsett explained.
