PillPack raises $8.75M more for online pharmacy service

By Jonah Comstock
02:30 am
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PillPack_ShipmentPillPack, a direct-to-consumer mail order pharmacy that launched in February, has raised $8.75 million in funding. The round was led by Accel Partners, with additional participation from existing investor Atlas Venture, as well as High Line Venture Partners, QueensBridge Venture Partners, and individual investors Andy Palmer and David Tisch.

“PillPack is a seamless service for medications, complete with passionate pharmacists who have a real sense of mission and deliver better care,” Fred Destin, a partner at Accel Partners who will be joining the company's board, said in a statement. “This financing will accelerate PillPack towards replacing antiquated pharmacy for anyone who takes multiple medications.”

This is the second round of funding for the company. It raised $4 million from Atlas Venture and Founder Collective last July, but didn't announce the raise until its launch in February. This brings the company's total funding to $12.75 million. The service originally launched in 31 states, but now serves 40.

PillPack offers online and by-mail pharmacy services, which previously cost the user $20 per month, but are now free (other than the user's copay). After a doctor eprescribes or faxes PillPack a prescription, the company sends a customer all of his or her medications for the next 14 days, prepackaged by dose. Customers are also billed every two weeks in one comprehensive charge.

Using web tools, customers can monitor their shipments and add over the counter medications and vitamins to their orders. They can see how much their meds are costing them, and how much their insurance is contributing. PillPack customers also have 24-7 access to their pharmacist by phone if they have any concerns with their medication. And the service accepts most drug insurance plans, including many Medicare plans.

"If you put yourself into the shoes of someone taking seven or eight prescriptions every single month, they’re having to go to the pharmacy three or four times a month — because of the way their refills are synced up, they can’t get them all on the same day,” CEO TJ Parker told MobiHealthNews in February. “There’s typically a line, so if you don’t want to hold anyone else up you’re hesitant to ask the pharmacist any questions … Then you get home with all these bottles, you have to put them in a pillbox or whatever mechanism you’re using to manage your meds. So it becomes this arduous confusing complicated system for people who are taking meds. [PillPack] takes all that complexity and makes it fairly simple.”

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