WellDoc Receives $20 Million to Support BlueStar, an FDA-Approved Mobile Prescription Therapy
By Adam Brown
On January 10, WellDoc, a clinical and behavioral science company founded by Joslin endocrinologists, announced that it received $20 million of funding, including support from Merck’s Global Health Innovation Fund (Merck GHI). WellDoc is the creator of BlueStar, an FDA-approved diabetes self-management system that can be prescribed by a provider to help support people with type 2 diabetes. BlueStar provides real-time coaching, education, and motivational support individualized to each patient’s needs and data (please read our new now next to learn more about the system). The financing will fund a sales force to roll out BlueStar across the country.
Importantly, as a new class of diabetes therapy, BlueStar will be reimbursed similarly to other prescription products, which is very rare for products in mobile health. In many ways, BlueStar is the future of healthcare (apps/software as prescriptions!) and represents a real advance for patients with diabetes – the system can provide ongoing, individualized support in a way that healthcare providers simply cannot. In addition, diabetes is such a numbers driven disease, and it only makes sense that automated systems like BlueStar will be able to help improve patient outcomes with much less effort than the current standard of care. We look forward to test driving BlueStar in a future issue of diaTribe. – AB/NL/HM
