This morning predictive analytics company Cardinal Analytx announced a $22 million Series B funding round. The latest raise was led by Kleiner Perkins' John Doerr, with participation from GuideWell Mutual Holding Corporation, Blue Shield California and Premera Blue Cross.
The announcement is coupled with the news that John Doerr will be joining the Palo Alto, California-based company’s board of directors.
WHY THEY DO
The Stanford University spinout was founded with the goal of providing predictive population health insights. The company's tool uses artificial intelligence to predict which patients will have high health spending in the future. It then sets its clients, insurers and providers up with plans to intercept and help patients before their conditions deteriorate.
The startup employs the research of Stanford University professors and cofounders Dr. Arnold Milstein and Dr. Nigam Shah.
“Arnie’s rationale is most effort goes into looking for persistent high-cost people, the 40 percent of the population that spends the bulk of the money,” Thomas McKinleyThomas McKinley, cofounder of the company, told MobiHealthNews during a 2017 interview. “But in fact, a large percentage of high spenders in 2017 were not high spenders in 2016. So, he said, let’s focus on that. So he and Professor Shah worked with a database in Denmark and they created a very good model for predicting these high-cost people.”
In 2017 the company had a $6 million funding round led by Cardinal Partners with participation and Premera Blue Cross.
WHAT IT’S FOR
The money will be invested in new employees and technology that will help the company grow its machine learning and predictive model.
MAREKT SNAPSHOT
This isn’t the only company working on a risk predication platform. While Cardinal Analytx specializes in cost, others are looking at it from a provider perspective. KenSci uses AI to identify patterns and health risks. The West Coast startup recently landed $6 million in funding.
Even some of the big tech giants are starting to look into this space. The US Patent and Trademark Office recently published a Google patent application that revealed some details on a predictive EHR system. The proposed system can aggregate and store EHRs for a diverse population, while compiling each individual patient’s records into a single chronological document.
ON THE RECORD
"The ability to leverage predictive analytics, machine learning and AI to improve outcomes for individuals and the health care system as a whole will be a hallmark of leading health solutions organizations going forward,” Patrick Geraghty, president and CEO of GuideWell and its health insurance company, Florida Blue, said in a statement. "Our investment in Cardinal Analytx reflects our commitment to innovation in this area and our confidence in the company and its leadership."
