PharmD Live

PharmD Live is software-as-a-service for seniors.

This "telehealth" platform — a term for administering healthcare services digitally — provides the 44 million Americans on Medicare with 24/7 access to pharmacists. These pharmacists assist with medication adherence in an effort to provide Chronic Care Management, or "CCM."

CCM helps prevent dangerous medication-related problems, lowers costs, and improves the overall life of the patient.

The problem is that seniors today experience significant challenges with respect to their medication:

For one, medications are involved in 80% of treatment plans, but 50% aren’t taken as directed.

For another, nearly 50 million Adverse Drug Events (ADEs) occur from prescription medications each year. ADEs, which include medication errors, allergic reactions, and overdoses, are the 4th-leading cause of death in the U.S.

Finally, over 40% of nursing home admissions are associated with medication non-adherence. The U.S. suffers more than $300 billion in unnecessary medical costs each year due to medication non-adherence and ADEs.

The thing is, funding for a solution is available. In 2015, Medicare authorized $40 billion in CCM funding to address these problems. Yet in 2019, less than 1.5% of those funds were spent toward this goal.

PharmD Live offers a pharmacist-led solution to care management. As medication experts, PharmD Live pharmacists are uniquely qualified to optimize chronic disease management and improve medication adherence.

The company’s software is designed to achieve two main goals. The first is enhancing patient care.

To achieve this, the platform offers 24/7 access to healthcare, self-management of health conditions, better health outcomes and quality of life, and engagement with care providers.

At the same time, it reduces out-of-pocket costs, disease exacerbations, medication errors and ADEs, and emergency room visits and hospitalizations.

The second goal is benefitting a physician’s practice. This improves actionable patient information, patient engagement, patient health, and practice revenue streams.

At the same time, it reduces physician and staff workload, preventable medication errors, healthcare expenditures, and Quality Payment Program penalties.

To get the most out of this platform, pharmacists engage with patients and get a sense of their medical history. This includes gathering information on allergies, vaccinations, medications, symptoms, side effects, and chronic conditions.

This enables them to assess the patient’s risk of mis-management and create a customized plan.

Services are paid for by the patient’s Medicare insurance on a monthly basis. And PharmD Live estimates that it earns $1,000 per patient per year.

PharmD Live began developing its software in 2016. In 2017, it received a provisional patent for a feature that predicts a patient's risk for medication mismanagement. It also completed a prototype of its software.

Over the past two years, the company tested its software and received its first Letters of Intent. Now it’s ready to release its platform to market.

Team Background

Trang Flores - Interim COO & CTO

Trang has 17 years of healthcare and technology experience. Her background includes time at hospitals, academic medical centers, clinical research facilities, and long-term acute care practices.

She began her career at Baylor College of Medicine, where she spent nine years as a senior clinical information systems analyst and Lead Clinical Information Systems Analyst. From there, she was Vice President of Information Technology for a pair of healthcare companies, Diabetes America and Nexus Health Systems.

More recently, she was Chief Information Officer of Emerus 24-Hour Emergency Room, then became Chief Administrative and Technology Officer for Tandem Hospital Partners.

Trang earned a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Computer Information Systems Management from Houston Baptist University, and an MBA from the University of Houston.

Cynthia Nwaubani - Chief Executive Officer

Cynthia is a seasoned healthcare executive with more than 10 years in the industry.

She began as a pharmacist with CVS Health. From there, she held the same position with Sentara Healthcare, and then at The George Washington University Hospital.

After that, she was a specialist at Mirixa Corporation, a company focused on medical therapy management services. While there, she conduced comprehensive medication reviews and identified potential problems with respect to Medicare patients and medication abuse.

More recently, Cynthia was a population health and consultant pharmacist with Privia Health, a health and wellness company. She treated high-risk patients and focused on reducing hospital readmission rates. After that, she was Medication Management Director with MedRev, a healthcare solutions company.

She earned her Doctorate from Temple University School of Pharmacy.

William Townsend - Chief Financial Officer

William has extensive experience growing startups.

Initially, he spent 21 years as a finance director with Honeywell, a conglomerate company. From there, he started his own consulting business, and focused on M&A and capital fundraising.

He then became Chief Financial Officer for Global Safety Labs, a manufacturing startup. After that, he held the same position with Flavor 1st Growers and Packers, a farming business.

More recently, William was General Manager of a food & beverage distributor that was acquired by Albert’s Organics, a larger competitor. He joined PharmD Live in November 2019.

He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from the University of Missouri-Saint Louis.

Co-Investors