A healthcare provider logs into Biofourmis’ platform. The company uses remote monitoring devices to track how heart failure patients fare after they are discharged from the hospital. Photo credit: Biofourmis
Since it first struck a partnership with drugmaker Novartis in 2019, remote monitoring startup Biofourmis began developing systems to track how patients fare while taking their medications.
The goal was to reduce hospital readmissions and emergency-room visits for patients taking Novartis’ heart failure medication, Entresto. By catching early signs of deterioration, physicians could intervene sooner.
Heart failure patients were sent home with a small device that they wear on their upper arm to measure their heart rate, respiration rate, blood oxygenation, heart rate variability and a slew of other measurements.
Now, with an influx of new funding, Biofourmis hopes to expand its system to other indications.
The Boston-based startup closed a $100 million series C round, led by SoftBank’s second Vision Fund. It plans to use the funds to develop more products for heart failure patients, as well as expand into oncology and pain management.
Earlier in March, Biofourmis had discussed raising a smaller amount of funding to scale up its operations. Two months later, CEO Kuldeep Singh Rajput connected with SoftBank.
“As we started talking, there were certain opportunities to expand into new markets, Japan and China,” he said in a phone interview. “We eventually decided to raise our series C and do a large round. … This will enable us to accelerate our growth in the U.S. but internationally as well.”
Adding new therapeutics
Biofourmis has several digital therapeutics in its pipeline, including ones that it has developed internally and brought in through acquisitions.
Its current platform uses titration algorithms to provide clinicians with dose recommendations. Rajput said the company is currently in pivotal trials for an automated version of the system that would send dose recommendations directly to patients.
The startup currently has FDA clearance for two products: a software that uses machine learning to interpret cardiac arrhythmias, and its Biovitals analytics engine.
“We have close to 15 regulatory clearances in eight different countries,” Rajput said. “A lot of progress has been made.”
Earlier this year, Biofourmis added to its oncology pipeline with its acquisition of Gaido Health from Takeda Pharmaceuticals. It plans to use Gaido’s platform to manage toxicities in cancer patients undergoing CAR-T cell therapy, by allowing them to be monitored at home for signs of clinical complications, instead of at the hospital.
The company also plans to develop products for coronary artery disease and atrial fibrillation, though those are in the earlier stages.
“We are still very much focused on cardiovascular,” Rajput said. “Many people have multiple comorbid conditions. We would want to see a person with cardiovascular condition as a whole rather than one condition.”
Covid-19 and remote monitoring
Currently, most of Biofourmis’ business comes from its pharma customers, which include Novartis, Chugai Pharmaceutical and AstraZeneca. But as the Covid-19 pandemic shifted more patients out of the hospital setting, the company has also seen more interest from health systems, with partners including Massachusetts General Hospital, the Mayo Clinic, and other hospitals outside of the U.S.
In the first half of 2020, Rajput said Biofourmis’ revenue grew nearly tenfold.
“Due to the pandemic, many hospitals have mandated that patients need to be remotely seen with complex chronic conditions,” he said. “I think this will remain because I don’t think patients want to move to the old way of healthcare.”
