New Zealand virtual pharmacy startup, ZOOM Health, which founder David Taylor calls the “Uber Eats of prescriptions”, is looking to raise NZ$3 million via Kiwi investing marketplace Snowball Effect.
Taylor, ZOOM’s MD, founded the healthtech venture in 2017, targeting people on multiple medications who struggle to get to the pharmacy with a delivery option.
“Whilst I’ve worked in this industry for a long time, there’s been little to no innovation in the prescribing and dispensing of medicines in New Zealand. We saw an opportunity to provide a medicine adherence service that was more convenient and efficient for all patients by literally bringing the pharmacy to them, this is how ZOOM was born,” he said.
Taylor said there was already strong demand, especially in low socio-economic communities, before the Covid-19 pandemic hit and one of the challenges ZOOM is hoping to address is that around a third of people don’t pick up their medicine from a pharmacy, and among those who do, one-third don’t take them properly.
“One of the biggest challenges facing the medical industry is how well patients take their prescribed medication, otherwise known as medicine adherence,” he said.
“We’re committed to getting people to take their prescribed medicines correctly and regularly, to avoid increased health complications, fewer hospital admissions and costs to our healthcare system, by utilising the latest technology to improve patient outcomes.”
The NZ$3 million raise is to scale up operations, including a potential international expansion to Australia, and further abroad.
ZOOM Health has contracts with 10 large District Health Boards and Taylor says there’s a 95% customer retention rate after six months of using the service.
Details on the Snowball Effect campaign are available here.
Trending
Daily startup news and insights, delivered to your inbox.