This morning Tabula Rasa Healthcare, a digital health company focused on medication safety, announced that it has agreed to acquire Australian company DoseMe for an undisclosed sum. 

The acquisition, which is set to close the first quarter of 2019, means Tabula Rasa will be acquiring DoseMeRx, a platform designed to help clinicians and pharmacists figure out the proper dose of medication for high needs individuals. According to the companies, the platform examines the patients' pharmacokinetics, which includes how well they can metabolize and absorb the medication. 

After the deal is officially closed, DoseMeRX will be integrated with Tabula Rasa Healthcare’s Medication Risk Mitigation technologies, which target hospital use integration. 

Why it matters 

For doctors, finding the proper dosage for a medication can be tricky. With some studies projecting that medical error is the third leading cause of death in the United States, many companies are looking for ways to address this crisis. 

Both Tabula Rasa Healthcare and DoseMe were created to tackle this problem. The companies’ leaderships have said that they can address this issue more effectively by combining the two platforms. 

“By joining Tabula Rasa HealthCare, we are able to more effectively combat the growing problem of adverse drug events, most of which can be prevented through better medication monitoring and dosing,” Charles Cornish, CEO of DoseMe, said in a statement. “We look forward to working with TRHC to provide clinicians with the tools they need to optimize medication therapy and improve patients’ quality of life.”

The trend

This is not Tabula Rasa’s first acquisition. In September of 2017 the medication safety company purchased SinfoniaRx, a provider of medication therapy management technology and services for Medicaid, Medicare and Commercial Health plans. That acquisition was expected to help Tabula Rasa expand its MTM programs to strategic markets—specifically providers, commercial payers, pharmacy benefit managers and self-funded employers. 

On the record 

“With DoseMe’s state-of-the-art decision support tool combined with our ability to predict and prevent harmful drug interactions through tools such as the MRM Matrix, we are now able to offer hospitals a broader range of protection against adverse drug events, the fourth leading cause of death in the US,” Calvin H. Knowlton, said Tabula Rasa Healthcare’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement. “Together, we can power the shift to precision prescribing, tailoring medication to meet individual needs and tolerances, which will have a profound impact on safety, quality, and costs, such as medication-related increased hospital length-of-stay.”