SAN FRANCISCO (TIP) : Pharmacy startup Alchemy announced Tuesday, November 19, the launch of its digital product’s first iteration, calling it “Release #1 of The Alchemy Digital Product.”
Founder and co-CEO of Alchemy, Sid Viswanathan took to LinkedIn to share the product’s release and why he thought it was critical for the long-term success of safety net clinics.
Alchemy’s mission remains to serve safety net clinics by building in-house pharmacies, claiming they yield better financial results as well as improve patient outcomes. The pharmacy startup was born out of a need to support health clinics with physical, clinical and digital infrastructure to streamline pharmaceutical operations and better patient care.
The digital product was launched in service of Alchemy’s mission, Viswanathan shared in a blog post highlighting the software solution. To provide long-term value for Alchemy’s customers and their patients “beyond the walls of a pharmacy,” the startup is investing in both clinical and digital products.
“When you focus on not only the 1st prescription fill, but also the 75th fill (because HIV patients are required to stay on treatment for the rest of their lives), you begin to think about the entire patient journey for that clinic and patient very differently, and realize there is so much that can be done to improve that clinic and patient’s life from both a clinical and digital product standpoint,” Viswanathan noted.
The current iteration of the digital product “Release #1” has built-in features such as Inbox and Task Management, Patient Profiles, and Patient Timeline View, making it convenient for patients to access refills to their essential medicines among other such benefits, removing the need for multiple pharmacy visits, long wait times, and other hurdles to access their medications.
Just last month, Alchemy announced a $31 million seed investment, backed by the likes of basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Andreessen Horowitz’ a16z Bio + Health initiative and others to build and operate in-house pharmacies for independent clinics with a focus on providers that have large HIV and Hepatitis C (HCV) patient populations.
Viswanathan is no stranger to the healthcare industry. Previously, Viswanathan was the CEO and co-founder of the B2B pharmacy service TruePill. A Carnegie Mellon alum, Viswanathan started his entrepreneurial journey with CardMunch which was later acquired by LinkedIn. ‍
“Over the last decade of my career, I’ve built digital pharmacy products that have dispensed over 25 million prescriptions to 4M patients across all 50 states. In that time, I’ve seen how the existing pharmacy technology infrastructure in America has lagged most other industries that have been through consumerization shifts in recent years,” Viswanathan wrote on his LinkedIn post.
Believing that technology is the way forward, Alchemy hopes their software can have “an enormous and disproportionately positive impact” on patient outcomes, especially for people living with HIV and Hepatitis C.