Late last week virtual care company VirTrial scooped up fellow telehealth startup SnapMD for an undisclosed sum. Virtrial, a portfolio company of Kinderhook Industries LLC, focuses on providing telemedicine services to the clinical trial industry.
Meanwhile SnapMD has been more centered around providing enterprise services to health systems. As part of the new acquisition SnapMD will be a subsidiary of VirTrial, and its Virtual Care Management platform will be rolled into the latter’s clinical trial product.
“Our acquisition of SnapMD enables us to better implement our vision of making clinical trials easier for everyone involved from sponsors to sites and patients. By offering a simplified, straightforward user experience and the ability for sponsors to include multiple countries with extensive features, VirTrial continues to set the bar in decentralized clinical trial platforms,” Mark Hanley, CEO of VirTrial, said in a statement.
This new comes just months after SnapMD released an updated version of its virtual care mobile app for iOS and Android. At the time of the launch the company said the new tool would offer clients new tools to embed the services with their own mobile device. The updated app also came with an SDK and APIs that let provider clients either customize their own branded telemedicine mobile app, or integrate the company’s telehealth services into their existing products.
WHY IT MATTERS
Digital health is more frequently making its way into the clinical trial space. Industry stakeholders have continued to stress digital’s role in the future of R&D.
“Very soon, digital tools will become part of clinical trials in many different disease areas [because] the cost of clinical trials is so high,” Dr. Paul Stoffels, vice chairman of the executive committee and chief scientific officer at J&J, said at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2019 in November. “If you have to have 300,000 people in an outcomes clinical trial, the cost used to be hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. Now it’s doable, and it very quickly will change the entire field. Virtual recruitment and inclusion, people being able to be treated at home, digital consultations — that will all help to do faster and simpler trials.”
THE LARGER TREND
In 2018 SnapMD closed a $7.1 million funding round, which brought the companies total funding pot to $16.3 million.
The Californian company has also made a number of deals with major payers and providers. It inked a deal with the American Academy of Pediatrics to provide its Virtual Care Management platform to the organizations Member Advantage Program. In July it formed a partnership with healthcare focused plug-and-play platform Carefluence to integrate SnapMD’s Virtual Care Management platform with EHR software Module MD.
ON THE RECORD
“We are extremely thrilled to join the VirTrial team and drive the evolution of telemedicine platforms in the clinical research industry,” David Skibinski, CEO of SnapMD, said in a statement. “This transaction will enable SnapMD to further its commitment to improve access to care, regardless of setting, through an industry-best telemedicine solution and unmatched breadth of services.”
