Compiling an individual’s entire medical history—from clinic visits to daily smartwatch data and beyond—can feel like following a far-flung trail of breadcrumbs. On a mission to make that path a little smoother, however, is Seqster, which is developing a platform to collect all that information in a single place.
It’s not alone in that journey: Seqster, pronounced “seek-ster,” has raised $12 million in series A funding led by OmniHealth Holdings. Other participants in the round included Takeda’s digital health-focused venture fund and Anne Wojcicki, co-founder and CEO of 23andMe.
The San Diego-based startup will use the new investment to further develop its platform and expand its reach to more individuals, healthcare providers, payers and researchers.
Individuals can use the platform not only to bring together their electronic health records, pharmacy orders and lab history but also to link a genomic profile compiled by DNA testing providers like 23andMe and Ancestry, plus information gathered by wearable devices and wellness tracking apps from Fitbit, Dexcom, MyFitnessPal and more.
After doing so, users can choose to share all of that information with their care teams. Seqster’s platform can currently be integrated directly into the data sources of more than 4,000 hospitals and health systems and more than 150,000 medical clinics across the U.S.
Payers and researchers can also access and analyze the data. Seqster’s research portal aims to help identify promising candidates for clinical trials and deliver their relevant health data to clinicians.
“Seqster was built on the foundation that real-time access to a patient’s complete medical history can solve major pain points across the healthcare continuum, impacting lives at scale,” CEO and co-founder Ardy Arianpour said in a release.
“We are excited to have investors who are experienced operators and who share our mission and vision to change the way an enterprise or a patient can capture, refine and manage a multitude of disparate data sources in real-time, and present that aggregate in a way that solves real healthcare challenges,” Arianpour said.
Seqster, which was founded in 2016 but waited until 2018 to debut its platform, has found a partner in Takeda. The Japanese pharmaceutical giant previously invested an undisclosed amount in Seqster in early 2020, again with a goal of expanding the reach of the data-sharing platform.
The duo extended that partnership in the fall. Under their updated agreement, Takeda has access to Seqster’s platform and research portal to advance its own research efforts.
At the time, Emir Roach, head of digital partnerships and emerging technology at Takeda, said in a statement that the company was already eyeing “12 distinct use cases across our business” that could see significant progress within just a matter of weeks with the support of Seqster’s technology.
by Andrea Park
Source: fiercebiotech.com
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