BOSTON (August 12, 2022)—Biofourmis, a Boston-based provider of virtual care and digital medicine, announced that Intel Capital, the strategic investment arm of chipmaker Intel Corporation, has joined its Series D financing in an extension that brings the total funding raised in the round to $320 million. The initial Series D funding round was announced in April and was led by global growth equity firm General Atlantic with participation by CVS Health, Trevor Fetter and existing investors.
Biofourmis announced earlier that it is using the funds from the Series D round to scale up its virtual care offerings that drive high-quality care-at-home across the continuum as well as digital medicine initiatives, including building digital companion therapeutics to augment existing and upcoming novel therapies.
“Biofourmis is laser-focused on delivering real-time patient insight to clinicians to improve the home-based care experience,” said Mark Rostick, vice president and senior managing director at Intel Capital. “Through edge computing and edge-to-cloud processing capabilities, Biofourmis is redefining the patient and provider journey leveraging advanced technology.”
Biofourmis continues to buck health tech funding trends with this Series D extension, which comes during a downturn in digital health investment. According to a recent Rock Health report, the first half of 2022 saw 329 digital health funding deals totaling $10.3 billion—down from $14.7 billion raised in the first half of 2021 across 372 deals.
“To receive this additional funding from the venture capital arm of a global technology giant during an unpredictable time in digital health investment is further validation of Biofourmis’ market strength and potential and validates that we are distinguishing ourselves in the market,” said Kuldeep Singh Rajput, founder and CEO of Biofourmis. “We are on a strong trajectory for continued strategic growth in the coming years in terms of customers, partners and solution development.”
Biofourmis also announced the appointment of two esteemed health care leaders to its Board: Trevor Fetter, MBA, senior lecturer on the faculty of Harvard Business School and former longtime Tenet Healthcare Chairman and CEO; and Sachin H. Jain, MD, MBA, president and CEO of SCAN Group and SCAN Health Plan.
Fetter led one of nation’s largest for-profit health systems. He is a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, and will be helping Biofourmis scale its operations. Fetter was formerly chairman and CEO of Tenet Healthcare Corporation, one of the largest health systems in the U.S., which he helped grow to $20 billion in revenues and steadily increased margins.
Fetter also launched adjacent businesses—Conifer Health Solutions and United Surgical Partners International—which are now multi-billion-dollar enterprises and leaders in their respective fields. Fetter retired as chairman and CEO of Tenet in late 2017. He is also an active corporate director and investor, including participation in Biofourmis’ initial Series D round.
“What attracted me to Biofourmis was not only its flexible, scalable and powerful turn-key technology, but also its recent strategic diversification in offering remote, specialized care teams to healthcare organizations to fill clinical staffing gaps with around-the-clock management and care,” said Fetter, referring to the launch of the Biofourmis Care@Home offering for chronic disease management. The complex chronic disease service currently offers five virtual care programs: heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, lipid management and atrial fibrillation. The specialty care programs are delivered remotely by Biofourmis’ trained health navigators, who are frontline care coordinators, as well as a multidisciplinary team of licensed clinicians, including physicians, nurses and advanced practice providers.
Jain, a board-certified internal medicine physician, has 20 years of experience in clinical medicine, health policy, managed care and health care delivery leadership. He was special assistant to the National Coordinator in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and was part of the founding team at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). He was the global chief medical information and innovation officer at Merck and served as the president and chief executive officer at CareMore Health and Aspire Health, both divisions of Anthem. At CareMore, Jain launched hospital-at-home and home-based primary care programs and implemented novel clinical interventions to address loneliness and social isolation.
Today, Jain is president and CEO of SCAN Group and Health Plan, a diversified health care services organization that serves more than 300,000 older adults with $4 billion in revenues. Under his leadership, SCAN has grown its membership and footprint and has launched four new care delivery divisions that focus on home and community-based care: WelcomeHealth, HomeBase Medical, Healthcare in Action, and MyPlace Health. He also serves on the boards of Cardiovascular Systems Inc. and Make-A-Wish America.
Jain’s experience in public and commercial health insurance will be invaluable to Biofourmis as more payers and “payviders” (health systems that also sell and administer their own health plans) ramp up their implementation of virtual care programs across acute, post-acute and chronic condition management given the significant potential cost, clinical outcome and patient experience benefits.
“The convergence of greater acceptance of virtual care models, as well as the broader use of value-based payments, creates a moment where many of the digital health and care delivery ideas that have long been gaining momentum are now coming to full speed,” Jain said. “Biofourmis is at the forefront of helping bring those concepts to life, and I look forward to helping define the future of digital health and to support a company that is leading this transformation.”
Visit biofourmis.com for more information.
