Tech-enabled medication management company Scriptology has acquired competitor RxLive. The move propels the 15-month old company forward by several years and adds millions of dollars in technical infrastructure, executives said.
Scriptology is a pre-series A startup that works with risk-bearing providers and insurance companies to improve patient outcomes by involving clinical pharmacists. Started out of Redesign Health, a healthcare venture builder, Scriptology launched to bring a new approach to pharmacy services and medication management by combining an extended clinical pharmacist team with a technology platform to give patients more guidance and support to help them follow their medication plan.
Scriptology CEO Erin Hendrick said RxLive was a direct competitor with a similar mission to deliver medication management services through technology. RxLive began in 2017, and, over the last seven years, it has made significant investments to build out its technology platform, artificial intelligence and analytics.
At the beginning of the summer when Hendrick and RxLive CEO Mark Engelen first met, RxLive wanted a strategic partner. Scriptology had road-mapped its future technology goals, and RxLive had already built them out.
RxLive’s assets, combined with Scriptology’s strong finances and operations, made the case for the acquisition. It has set the company up for exponential growth, Hendrick said.
One piece of technology that was alluring to Scriptology is RxLive’s artificial-intelligence-based risk stratification that predicts when having clinical pharmacists involved in care will be the most impactful. The model can identify a patient’s risk for hospitalization and flag complications that can be impacted by the intervention of a pharmacist.
“When we're working with organizations who need … very specific clinical measures for their payer contracts, we're able to look at those populations and pick out those patients specifically who we need to work with,” Hendrick said.
RxLive sells its medication management platform to other healthcare organizations. Hendrick said the software-as-a-service platform will generate revenue for Scriptology.
Scriptology also saw the benefits of acquiring RxLive’s clinical teams and their records of thousands of patient interactions that involved a clinical pharmacist. The long track record of RxLive will help propel Scriptology forward, because the data show clinical pharmacists reduce healthcare costs.
“With these tools, we have the evidence to prove the impact, and we also have the history of over a quarter million patients that RxLive has seen where we can prove historically what the kind of insertion of a clinical pharmacist into the care has done in terms of costs and clinical outcomes,” Hendrick said.
She continued: “As a 15-month-old company, sometimes it's harder to prove those things, and so now we have the proof points to help drive all of the conversations.”
The acquisition of RxLive has propelled Scriptology forward by at least three years and saved the company millions in technology investment, Hendrick said. The acquisition has also quadrupled the company’s head count.
“When you're going out to fundraise, you're measured by specific milestones, including revenue at growth curves, what your product looks like and what your potential is, and now we've fast-forwarded that pretty significantly," Hendrick said.
Engelen will sit on the board of Scriptology. RxLive’s clinical teams will stay together and continue to provide RxLive’s services, according to the company.