Startup Pharmi has received €2.2 million in funding for the further roll-out of its digital online pharmacy platform MedicijnWijs. MedicijnWijs is the new digital pharmacist, embraced by pharmacists and health insurers, that provides patients with all the necessary information and guidance about the correct use of almost all medicines on the Dutch market. The number of users is growing rapidly. Team Pharmi is working towards a multi-year collaboration with all insurers in the Netherlands and reimbursement is also discussed with all health insurers. Pharmi is also making progress in Belgium and intends to expand to other countries.
MedicijnWijs guides patients in the use of regular medicines in the first two weeks of use. It helps by informing the user in short daily messages with text, video and animation about what a medicine does, what side effects there may be, what condition it concerns, how to deal with medicine wastage, whether you can travel with it, what the patient association does, which lifestyle suits the condition, and so on. Via the platform it is possible to ask questions to your own pharmacy, for example via a chat function and questionnaires can also be completed. In addition, Pharmi supports the rational use of medication, whereby modules, for example, support therapy compliance and guide the reduction of medication where possible.
Customers such as (online) pharmacies, chains and pharmaceutical home care organizations can guide patients remotely and enable increasingly personalized care via a care dashboard with targeted data analysis.
Digital where possible and human where necessary The starting point of MedicijnWijs is: digital where possible and human where necessary. Pharmi is thus responding to the fact that healthcare is currently becoming increasingly overheated. This is due on the one hand to a shortage of healthcare personnel and, on the other hand, to a growing number of elderly and vulnerable people who use many and complex medicines for a long time. This creates avoidable mistakes, thousands of people are already unnecessarily hospitalized and is a major source of waste. The goal of Pharmi is to allow the patient with the platform to maintain as much control as possible over drug use, so that fewer errors occur and more time is left for the human care of pharmacists where it is really needed. MedicijnWijs therefore leads to better results, happier patients and less waste.
MedicijnWijs is offered as a standalone application or can be linked via an API (Application Programming Interface) to existing pharmacy platforms on which the patient is already active.
Claudia Rijcken, founder and director of Pharmi says: “Pharmi is the first true digital pharmacist to offer patients empathetic interactive medication guidance when it suits the patient. Our team makes it possible for pharmacists and healthcare providers to deliver the very best digital care, so they have more time for the necessary human interaction. I am very proud of our team that makes pharmaceutical care more sustainable, more efficient and more fun every day. We would like to thank the new shareholders Healthy.Capital, LIOF and INZET for accelerating the rollout of our plans to help as many people as possible get the right medicines. In addition, we would like to thank our investors from the very beginning - Rabobank, LIOF, the Limburg Technology Investment Fund and our business angels - for their initial confidence in our vision.”
Douwe Jippes, founder and managing partner of new shareholder Healthy.Capital, says: “In Healthy.Capital's vision, we invest in a necessary solution for people who use and dispense medicines. Healthcare is digitizing at a rapid pace and a solution such as MedicijnWijs offers a good opportunity for safe use of medicines. Internationally, Pharmi has great opportunities to make an impact as a Dutch digital health product.”
