Sonara Well being raises $3M for digital methadone administration platform

Sonara Well being, maker of a digital methadone administration system, raised $3 million in a seed funding spherical led by First Belief Capital Companions and Blue Cross Blue Defend of Kansas.

WHAT IT DOES

Based in 2020, the Mark Cuban-backed startup has constructed a digital system to permit sufferers with opioid use dysfunction to take methadone at dwelling whereas being monitored by a clinician. 

Although necessities had been loosened through the COVID-19 pandemic, methadone has sometimes been disbursed at federally regulated clinics, which regularly required sufferers to journey every day to obtain their dose. 

Sonara’s system features a tamper-evident label for the medicine plus an internet utility that enables sufferers to tape themselves whereas taking their methadone. An app for clinicians lets them remotely and asynchronously monitor sufferers’ use of the drug.

The corporate plans to make use of the seed capital to maintain creating its platform and to companion with extra opioid remedy packages. 

“We obtain messages from sufferers on a regular basis letting us know that we’ve got made their lives simpler to remain on target with their restoration, these notes maintain us going,” Dr. Michael Giles, CEO of Sonara Well being, stated in a press release. 

MARKET SNAPSHOT

Opioids proceed to be a critical public well being concern within the U.S. In response to the CDC, overdose deaths involving opioids elevated from about 70,000 in 2020 to greater than 80,000 final 12 months. Total drug overdose deaths elevated almost 15% in 2021. 

Nonetheless, there may be some proof digital care may assist sufferers fighting opioid use dysfunction entry care. A current research revealed in JAMA Psychiatry discovered that offering opioid use disorder-related telehealth companies through the COVID-19 pandemic was related to decrease odds of medically handled overdoses and higher retention with medicines like methadone and buprenorphine.

Different digital well being firms centered on habit care and medication-assisted remedy embody Bicycle Well being, which raised $50 million in Collection B funding this 12 months; Boulder Care, which lately raised $36 million; and Ophelia, which scooped up $50 million in Collection B funding final 12 months.

Workit Well being introduced a $118 million increase almost a 12 months in the past, and Stop Genius lately had two substance-use-disorder packages added to Evernorth’s digital well being formulary.