Erin O'Brien: Every day, millions of Americans pick up a prescription and then never take it. Or they take it for a few weeks and stop. It sounds like an easy mistake, but medication non-adherence is responsible for an estimated 125,000 deaths in the US every year. Tamar Sapir, founder and CEO of Synchronx, is determined to close that gap. Tamar, thank you for joining me on No Operating Manual.
Tamar Sapir: Thank you for having me.
Erin O'Brien: ⁓ You have a PhD in biochemistry and are a clinical professor with more than 80 published papers, which a fairly traditional academic path. What made you decide to add startup founder to your bio?
Tamar Sapir: Well, that was not intentional, or not even planned for. as a and researcher I've always ⁓ was interested to close gaps and research and and to look into where gaps in care exist. And ⁓ over the years, ⁓ both on on the lab work but also as a medical education specialist, I worked a lot with health systems and pharmacies and health plans and my role was to really understand where these gaps exist. And that was ⁓ you know ⁓ more like a A gap that I was so fascinated to try to solve. So it was not my intention to ⁓ come up with a whole new solution, but rather like, what can we do about it that would really how can we close this gap? But never did I think that I will found a company myself. But you know, the more you're asking questions and the more you're trying to solve it, then you say, okay, there is there is both a pain point and and there is a need for it. I think I might ⁓ have a solution on how to do it. So why don't we just jump into it and and let's try to figure out and let's just try out if if it can work in in a small pilot. And let's ask start asking some of the experts I know if this is a solution that can help. So one thing leads to another ⁓ you initially may doubt yourself like can I do it? Is it something I I never really planned to open company. I was always really good at walking behind the scenes and really being like an a perfectionist about what we're doing and how do we do and delivering good results. And all of a sudden it's just like it it gives birth. ⁓ it's almost like ⁓ giving you know birth to a to a baby in a way. you never really plan for it, but when it comes and it's like you you start to mature into it, you feel like that was meant to be and It it just happens. So and I'm I'm really grateful for the journey that I took. It was like kind of taking a a leap into something that's unknown and very scary. But that's probably one of my biggest mottos is jump into the waters and you know that something good good is gonna happen. Trust yourself that as long as you're doing good work, good things are gonna happen. And ⁓ that's that's been my example both to my kids and to any one of my Mintees and and team members as long as you're doing good work, it's it thin good things are gonna happen.
Erin O'Brien: So that accidental founder, accidental entrepreneurship is sometimes a common thread of trying to solve something that hasn't been solved before. So tell me about Synchronx and walk us through how your product works.
Tamar Sapir: so Synchronx comes to address one of the biggest challenges in our healthcare system, where the moment the patient being prescribed with a medication, there really no visibility what happens with that patient from that time point until these patients are really facing a lot of barriers and challenges in care. so we're coming to address this gap where there is no visibility about that patient journey. ⁓ and we're basically converting every medication to become a connected companion and a connected experience. where we're using smart labels. So these smart labels, you can see my screen here, they're completely battery-free. And what's unique about them is that they are encoded in a way that they're personalized for every medication. So if you think of my sp smart bottle here, which has a a sticker affixed to it, or even my injection right? ⁓ any type of package now can become A smart package where it knows exactly which medication that is and how often I'm supposed to take my medication. And all the patient needs to do is basically just take their phone and tap it against that label. When they tap their phone against the label, now it creates that time point in time that they can confirm that they have taken the right medication at the right time. And start ⁓ to be empowered in their own journey, right? They can receive an alert, a reminder if they have a dose due, or an alert if they missed a dose, ⁓ also important any challenges that they may face, whether it's side effects or complications, or ⁓ some social ⁓ determinants health, challenges they might have, such as transportation or other social ⁓ that that might occur along the way that will need to be alert to to different team members. It can be a pharmacist or it can be a nurse or a physician that needs to know and proactively ⁓ and ⁓ any these challenges along the way. So it really a connected dot program in a way that both motivates patients to stay on track and to stay healthy along the way with education, resources, check-ins for patients and depending on where they are in their journey, the system would know to personalize that experience for these patients and connect them to the right team members the right time. So it does create a lot of opportunities from a health ecosystem perspective to A identify the patients who are at risk in an early and timely manner, in a proactive way, and to close these gaps to different interventions or different programs that might be already available at the health system level, but may not necessarily know how to connect it or to reach the right patients at that time. So that ⁓ and also from a ⁓ vote from a sponsor perspective or think about a payer or a pharmacy, each one of these stakeholders have a lot of interest and value to make sure that the patients are taking their medications a timely manner.
Erin O'Brien: So you said that it it delivers the information to the nurse or the pharmacist or the the doctor. Is there a a clear path that from there, ⁓ that doctor side or that pharmacist side, that there is a a reaction to that lack of tapping on pharmaceutical or what the How do they make sure that they're following up on a timely basis?
Tamar Sapir: Yeah, yeah, that's really important. And that might really fit their own workflows. So when we are working with a different pharmacy or health system or a cancer center, they might have different team members who might need to react ⁓ on different triggers or alerts. Some them may want to know on specific thresholds of if adherence may drop on, let's say, less than 80% of the time. Or ⁓ another would to know if a patient. reports on specific side effects that during their weekly check-ins. So Typically there would be designated team members like a nurse or a pharmacist who will be responsible to receive these alerts. So these alerts will come in into the health system based on their own needs and workflows. And ⁓ we we do have a clinical dashboard where they can come in and see exactly who are all the patients at risk and for what reason, and they can escalate. They can take action, escalate it to different team members, and that really creates a a very streamlined approach both from a clinical operation perspective and also opportunities to for it or document it for remote therapeutic monitoring or other chronic care or value-based care models that might exist and can support these clinics to ensure that these patients are managed ⁓ and escalated to to to prevent some worsening outcomes as well.
Erin O'Brien: So the statistic that stuck with me was that half of all patients stop taking their medications six months of being prescribed. ⁓ studied population health, which demographics are most ⁓ to stop taking their medications, ⁓ what are you hearing from patients as to why?
Tamar Sapir: Yeah, and that is very important statist statistics as well as ⁓ all patients are different, right? And that's what we're seeing. There are so many different reasons why patients might stop taking the medications, ⁓ oftentimes it's being blamed on patients. ⁓ patients stop taking the medications. ⁓ because they don't want to. oftentimes it might be also not only ⁓ from a patient perspective, but a system level perspective, right? Or different challenges, perhaps ⁓ was not educated on how to take the medication, or was not provided guidance ⁓ on how reach if they have any questions. So many times these reasons ⁓ are reasons can be either prevented or acted upon. ⁓ we say that ⁓ patients who stop taking the medications oftentimes have concerns about the medications or may maybe have questions and they don't know who to reach out to. ⁓ so and and then there might be sociodemographic barriers or differences. We we see that actually the majority of the non-adherence events are happening really early on from the first actually in within the first month of when starting to take the medications. That's typically not visible to ⁓ healthcare ecosystem because all we know is when that medication was prescribed and whether and if that medication was filled again. maybe it's after three months and sometimes it's after six months. So we really don't know how to what are these barriers. And now when we can start actually to zoom in and to identify not only the events of these non-adherence, but actually also the reasons, majority of the events are ⁓ actionable. Right for for these reasons. then we see also risk factors between demographic populations. ⁓ We that among black population, there is 11 times difference in medication concerns. Or if you look at elderly patients, they have more access challenges, or like how to access the a ⁓ pharmacy how to navigate ⁓ health insurance coverage. So So when you delve deeper into who are the patients and what might be the barriers, it will be much easier to come up with solutions or address them early on in the program. And then as time passes, other challenges are side effects and complications of the medications themselves. Depends on what condition or what therapeutic areas they're on. Challenges might might differ, but you can see these patterns over time that early on, much more opportunities to intervene, and then it's really important to ensure that you can follow up with these patients as any additional concerning items or complications arise over time.
Erin O'Brien: ⁓ I'm just thinking about it from the user perspective and and thinking about having your prescriptions and you know, especially, you know, I I think about my own parents and the multiple prescriptions they take. So you're sitting there tapping this, you know, six, seven, eight times a day, depending on what their medication process I'm I'm curious if you've seen better results w from patients who who have The product attached to all their prescriptions versus just a few.
Tamar Sapir: Yeah, and it again them based on patient preferences. what we're hearing from patients, ⁓ and regardless of what age, right? And actually the patients between the ages of fifty to seventy are the most engaged on our platform. and it's there is something really ⁓ magical and that's in their own words, about how the system is really easy to use because true all they need to do is tap their phone against the label. They don't need to open an app. They don't don't need to remember anything. It's just and when it they tap and they can see in big words the name of the medication, oftentimes when they have to look at the they don't even it's really hard for them even to see the what is the what is the medication they're taking. When they can see it in big screens and it can even speak it out loud to them. ⁓ it and then when they see the success message and ⁓ some kind of a ⁓ motivating messaging, it really is engaging them and kind of like they wanna see they wanna engage with this over time so that there is that behavioral piece to it. and then it really depends. They if they want to use the label affixed to one of the medications, and that's how they're using the medications, then sh. y they should go ahead and do that. But if they're using their pill sorters, that's completely fine as well. So the the mid the label itself can be affixed to however they're currently using in regular to use their medication schedule. If they don't want to use the label at all, they can just go they can get the text message and within the message they can confirm that they have recorded their entire schedule. So they can really, it's really designed for their patient preferences and how they're taking their medication. So they can record it as a bundle or select or unselect certain medications within this bundle as well.
Erin O'Brien: Is that you mentioned that it was a kind of a behavioral change, but I'm wondering, I mean, you have a ninety-seven percent compliance rate, which is amazing. Which is it is it the behavioral changing that behavior, is it psychological, like I'm confirming with my doctor something that's really important for me? Which which one of those are are ⁓ really moving that ninety seven percent?
Tamar Sapir: Yeah, great question. And we're actually looking into it. There are different elements are coming into it. There is one piece is the accountability, right? Like I want to now I'm accountable ⁓ for myself and I also want like there is someone who's gonna watch me. And sometimes it takes about a week to two weeks to get adjusted to the system, to know ⁓
Erin O'Brien: Mm.
Tamar Sapir: When am I am I actually taking my medications? And when do I want the reminders to cook in or any alerts to kick in? when they see that there might, like when there is a a nurse who is calling them to introduce them to the program, or if they're seeing that they're might not necessarily know how to record their doses, there is an element of okay, like building that relationship with my care team members and knowing that there is someone on the other line who will be looking after me and checking in on with Me if I have any challenges. So that starts to build like from week one, relationship and trust between the team members. and also to understand, like there is the opportunity to understand what are your preferences? When are you actually taking your medications? How do you want this program to be beneficial for you? And here is how we can be helpful for you. So when they start to feel like they're not on their own ⁓ and part of the team, ⁓ and don't feel Like penalized in any way, right? Like it's not about you reporting your doses and someone a big brother looking at you. No, it's really to empower you in your own journey. There is an element of that they can see their own data and they can see their own adherence scores and they they start to ⁓ their own ⁓ progress lines and their own goals. That's when we start to see, and like once they're like after the 10 days mark passes, you can see that these patients remain on the program. We have studies over one year and and the longitudinal engagement is is really high and remarkable.
Erin O'Brien: That's amazing. That's amazing. So you work with pharmaceutical companies and large health systems. How do you how do you work with kind of a that slow moving, so to adopt or what is your what is your go-to-market? How does that work together?
Tamar Sapir: Yeah, yeah. And it's been it took us some time to figure out and we still are, because it is a solution that everyone should care for, right? Like if you're thinking about the health system or pharmacy or health plan or a pharmaceutical company. it took us some time to understand how to define right messaging ⁓ and should who is the lowest hanging fruit to really say, hey, this is a solution I really need and I need it right now. And the our approach has been s ⁓ for the few years, hey, let's validate it and let's ⁓ publish the and look at ⁓ not only from a technology perspective but Does it impact clinical outcomes? And does it reduce healthcare utilization? And what does it mean for the patients? And what does it mean to the health system or to the partner that actually utilizes it? And we've been really fortunate to work with some of the leading champions, ⁓ heads or ⁓ or ⁓ chief pharmacy officer across health systems. They have adopted and embraced the program in many different ways that led to publications of our studies. And that was actually a key decision we made to put a lot of ⁓ invested in in these ⁓ and initiatives that have led into the credibility and the willingness. To look into okay, what does what data do you have? And show A, demonstrate to me that it's working and that patients are actually using it. and we've seen that these have been adopted ⁓ really by pharmaceutical companies who either have used it in research studies or clinical trials. Think about clinical trials.
Erin O'Brien: Yeah.
Tamar Sapir: So today, patients in protocols are using paper pill diaries to write down when they're taking the medications. So for and former sponsors, this is a really good opportunity not only to report and maximize their clinical trial programs, but also to make it much more proactive insightful and ⁓ seamless the patient and improving the patient experience. So clinical trials has been an avenue. We've been doing quite some work, but also in brand companion solutions. So now pharma companies can actually sponsor companion programs that are designed for a specific medication or a brand or a therapeutic area that can be available and then we disseminate it out and working with our health system partners and pharmacy partners to deploy it. And that kind of like leads to now these health systems. Who have adopted the companion program now, they want to offer it to many of their patient populations. They're expanding it and integrating it within their operational workflow. So it kind of like has led to: let's let's give you something, let's let's test it out in a clinical trial setting, and then you start to see that you have much more champions internally that want to start embedding and expanding it within their own networks. And ⁓ down the line, the direction is ⁓ once once the data demonstrates the value, ⁓ we would hope to start reaching out to payers, helplands, to really make it ⁓ expensive possible and to to be able to reach any patients with any condition.
Erin O'Brien: I think ⁓ it it really is a having peer reviewed clinical evidence is huge. You just don't see that typically in the startup world, because things are moving fast and it, you know, measurement sometimes is hard. And ⁓ great that that was a priority ⁓ because that just gives you kind of that evidence that this is ⁓ really helpful and beneficial for patients and for providers alike. ⁓ you've been in business for five years. you've recorded over a million doses and have 40 plus partners. What's the version that exists in the next five years? You talked about clinical trials, but what else?
Tamar Sapir: Yeah. we we really are hoping that this will be available for any patient, ⁓ either they're in chronic or specialty therapy. think of an elderly or an a young population. Like this needs to be like our goal is to make it accessible. So actually within the next few months, we are ⁓ planning to release a native application that's going to be available on ⁓ On any App Store and make freely available for anyone to download and to use. Now, through these programs, We we have different channels where we're still partnering with pharmaceutical companies and health systems and pharmacies. So ⁓ the Connect the Dot program can happen behind the scenes where if you are going to gonna go to your CVS or you know to your Walgreens pharmacy, that is already gonna come as an option for you to use as part of any medication plan. ⁓ you want, and then you can join and share the invitation with your provider or maybe with your specialist or or pharmacists. So our goal is really to connect the dots and synchronize between the entire healthcare ecosystem. and ⁓ if as a patient are willing to share that information with your care team, then they can really optimize the data ⁓ and and insights and the care for you.
Erin O'Brien: How does that then tie back to a patient's EHR in those instances? I think that's some of the struggles that folks have been running into.
Tamar Sapir: Yeah, definitely. And it should it should ⁓ be integrated completely as part of your seamless EHR and like that's a piece of data that should be available both for you and your care team. as part as as soon as a medication is being prescribed, that information can be instantly transferred over to our system and and and seamlessly connected. So if you're looking at your your my chart or any other patient platform, all that information can be embedded directly with these insights.
Erin O'Brien: So it'll show my usage, it'll show, you know, when I haven't taken it. Okay, interesting. ⁓ switching gears, the hardest thing about being a scientist turned CEO? What did you have to learn and unlearn in that process?
Tamar Sapir: Yeah. I think you really need to have different brains or mindsets. as a scientist, you are trained to be a thinker ⁓ and researching asking questions and moving slow and almost not take the next leap until you're 100% ⁓ sure and that's something that I've been trying to unlearn or to fix and correct. It doesn't need to be perfect in order to put it out there or in order to kind of give it to your first cohort or to test it out because it could be a scientist mindset or a perfectionist mindset. I always want, you know, the best version to to be introduced. but I think that from a CEO perspective, you really need to ⁓ make decisions ⁓ and decide when when it's time to to move on. ⁓ it's really important to bring ⁓ the right stakeholders and to bring the right expertise and I think that's something that I've been very fortunate early on to have a very good advisory board. Team members and counselors to complement the elements that may not necessarily have or not necessarily have the experience from an operational perspective or from a CEO perspective. So having that at those additional insights and expertise and to be able to bounce off ideas, oftentimes it feels alone, right? When you're a single solo CEO and founder, you have your team, but you Also, need to make decisions that's best for the company, and like how strategically can you operate, and kind of a thinking big picture. So I think that's one piece you have to think deep into the research, the product, ⁓ the day-to-day, the operations, but then there is the element of like what's the path forward or how to make a decision in terms of who do we focus on, right? Like from a go to market perspective and and the business strategy perspective.
Erin O'Brien: How many people are part of the team right now?
Tamar Sapir: we are still a small team of ⁓ about ten members. but very lean and everyone kind of pull up s pull ups the sleeves and and you know, very, passionate about what we're doing. I think that's really what defines the team. everyone ⁓ has ⁓ exciting vision ⁓ is willing to to invest in terms of the the focus of the programme and the results and how can we maximize the the output.
Erin O'Brien: If you were to give a current founder who may be an academic, who may be, you know, a researcher right now, what sort of advice would you give them as they're looking to grow their business?
Tamar Sapir: would say go it. don't hesitate. with your ⁓ and ⁓ and delay things. So that that probably will be my first advice. and and as long as seek for excellence, I would definitely say that you're following a point and ensure that you understand your audience and if it's within the healthcare, understand not only your customers but the key stakeholders that are using your solution and product and and and do the right research to To investigate and to understand the pain points, but then having those conversations early on. Don't keep your ideas with yourself. put it out there, put it out there to the universe and ⁓ and and be open to it and ⁓ and open to the people who are willing to ⁓ join in that journey.
Erin O'Brien: Tamar, thank you so much for your time and for joining me on No Operating Manual. I can't wait to see what happens next.
Tamar Sapir: Thank you, Erin. It was a pleasure.
Tamar Sapir: Thank you for having me.
Erin O'Brien: ⁓ You have a PhD in biochemistry and are a clinical professor with more than 80 published papers, which a fairly traditional academic path. What made you decide to add startup founder to your bio?
Tamar Sapir: Well, that was not intentional, or not even planned for. as a and researcher I've always ⁓ was interested to close gaps and research and and to look into where gaps in care exist. And ⁓ over the years, ⁓ both on on the lab work but also as a medical education specialist, I worked a lot with health systems and pharmacies and health plans and my role was to really understand where these gaps exist. And that was ⁓ you know ⁓ more like a A gap that I was so fascinated to try to solve. So it was not my intention to ⁓ come up with a whole new solution, but rather like, what can we do about it that would really how can we close this gap? But never did I think that I will found a company myself. But you know, the more you're asking questions and the more you're trying to solve it, then you say, okay, there is there is both a pain point and and there is a need for it. I think I might ⁓ have a solution on how to do it. So why don't we just jump into it and and let's try to figure out and let's just try out if if it can work in in a small pilot. And let's ask start asking some of the experts I know if this is a solution that can help. So one thing leads to another ⁓ you initially may doubt yourself like can I do it? Is it something I I never really planned to open company. I was always really good at walking behind the scenes and really being like an a perfectionist about what we're doing and how do we do and delivering good results. And all of a sudden it's just like it it gives birth. ⁓ it's almost like ⁓ giving you know birth to a to a baby in a way. you never really plan for it, but when it comes and it's like you you start to mature into it, you feel like that was meant to be and It it just happens. So and I'm I'm really grateful for the journey that I took. It was like kind of taking a a leap into something that's unknown and very scary. But that's probably one of my biggest mottos is jump into the waters and you know that something good good is gonna happen. Trust yourself that as long as you're doing good work, good things are gonna happen. And ⁓ that's that's been my example both to my kids and to any one of my Mintees and and team members as long as you're doing good work, it's it thin good things are gonna happen.
Erin O'Brien: So that accidental founder, accidental entrepreneurship is sometimes a common thread of trying to solve something that hasn't been solved before. So tell me about Synchronx and walk us through how your product works.
Tamar Sapir: so Synchronx comes to address one of the biggest challenges in our healthcare system, where the moment the patient being prescribed with a medication, there really no visibility what happens with that patient from that time point until these patients are really facing a lot of barriers and challenges in care. so we're coming to address this gap where there is no visibility about that patient journey. ⁓ and we're basically converting every medication to become a connected companion and a connected experience. where we're using smart labels. So these smart labels, you can see my screen here, they're completely battery-free. And what's unique about them is that they are encoded in a way that they're personalized for every medication. So if you think of my sp smart bottle here, which has a a sticker affixed to it, or even my injection right? ⁓ any type of package now can become A smart package where it knows exactly which medication that is and how often I'm supposed to take my medication. And all the patient needs to do is basically just take their phone and tap it against that label. When they tap their phone against the label, now it creates that time point in time that they can confirm that they have taken the right medication at the right time. And start ⁓ to be empowered in their own journey, right? They can receive an alert, a reminder if they have a dose due, or an alert if they missed a dose, ⁓ also important any challenges that they may face, whether it's side effects or complications, or ⁓ some social ⁓ determinants health, challenges they might have, such as transportation or other social ⁓ that that might occur along the way that will need to be alert to to different team members. It can be a pharmacist or it can be a nurse or a physician that needs to know and proactively ⁓ and ⁓ any these challenges along the way. So it really a connected dot program in a way that both motivates patients to stay on track and to stay healthy along the way with education, resources, check-ins for patients and depending on where they are in their journey, the system would know to personalize that experience for these patients and connect them to the right team members the right time. So it does create a lot of opportunities from a health ecosystem perspective to A identify the patients who are at risk in an early and timely manner, in a proactive way, and to close these gaps to different interventions or different programs that might be already available at the health system level, but may not necessarily know how to connect it or to reach the right patients at that time. So that ⁓ and also from a ⁓ vote from a sponsor perspective or think about a payer or a pharmacy, each one of these stakeholders have a lot of interest and value to make sure that the patients are taking their medications a timely manner.
Erin O'Brien: So you said that it it delivers the information to the nurse or the pharmacist or the the doctor. Is there a a clear path that from there, ⁓ that doctor side or that pharmacist side, that there is a a reaction to that lack of tapping on pharmaceutical or what the How do they make sure that they're following up on a timely basis?
Tamar Sapir: Yeah, yeah, that's really important. And that might really fit their own workflows. So when we are working with a different pharmacy or health system or a cancer center, they might have different team members who might need to react ⁓ on different triggers or alerts. Some them may want to know on specific thresholds of if adherence may drop on, let's say, less than 80% of the time. Or ⁓ another would to know if a patient. reports on specific side effects that during their weekly check-ins. So Typically there would be designated team members like a nurse or a pharmacist who will be responsible to receive these alerts. So these alerts will come in into the health system based on their own needs and workflows. And ⁓ we we do have a clinical dashboard where they can come in and see exactly who are all the patients at risk and for what reason, and they can escalate. They can take action, escalate it to different team members, and that really creates a a very streamlined approach both from a clinical operation perspective and also opportunities to for it or document it for remote therapeutic monitoring or other chronic care or value-based care models that might exist and can support these clinics to ensure that these patients are managed ⁓ and escalated to to to prevent some worsening outcomes as well.
Erin O'Brien: So the statistic that stuck with me was that half of all patients stop taking their medications six months of being prescribed. ⁓ studied population health, which demographics are most ⁓ to stop taking their medications, ⁓ what are you hearing from patients as to why?
Tamar Sapir: Yeah, and that is very important statist statistics as well as ⁓ all patients are different, right? And that's what we're seeing. There are so many different reasons why patients might stop taking the medications, ⁓ oftentimes it's being blamed on patients. ⁓ patients stop taking the medications. ⁓ because they don't want to. oftentimes it might be also not only ⁓ from a patient perspective, but a system level perspective, right? Or different challenges, perhaps ⁓ was not educated on how to take the medication, or was not provided guidance ⁓ on how reach if they have any questions. So many times these reasons ⁓ are reasons can be either prevented or acted upon. ⁓ we say that ⁓ patients who stop taking the medications oftentimes have concerns about the medications or may maybe have questions and they don't know who to reach out to. ⁓ so and and then there might be sociodemographic barriers or differences. We we see that actually the majority of the non-adherence events are happening really early on from the first actually in within the first month of when starting to take the medications. That's typically not visible to ⁓ healthcare ecosystem because all we know is when that medication was prescribed and whether and if that medication was filled again. maybe it's after three months and sometimes it's after six months. So we really don't know how to what are these barriers. And now when we can start actually to zoom in and to identify not only the events of these non-adherence, but actually also the reasons, majority of the events are ⁓ actionable. Right for for these reasons. then we see also risk factors between demographic populations. ⁓ We that among black population, there is 11 times difference in medication concerns. Or if you look at elderly patients, they have more access challenges, or like how to access the a ⁓ pharmacy how to navigate ⁓ health insurance coverage. So So when you delve deeper into who are the patients and what might be the barriers, it will be much easier to come up with solutions or address them early on in the program. And then as time passes, other challenges are side effects and complications of the medications themselves. Depends on what condition or what therapeutic areas they're on. Challenges might might differ, but you can see these patterns over time that early on, much more opportunities to intervene, and then it's really important to ensure that you can follow up with these patients as any additional concerning items or complications arise over time.
Erin O'Brien: ⁓ I'm just thinking about it from the user perspective and and thinking about having your prescriptions and you know, especially, you know, I I think about my own parents and the multiple prescriptions they take. So you're sitting there tapping this, you know, six, seven, eight times a day, depending on what their medication process I'm I'm curious if you've seen better results w from patients who who have The product attached to all their prescriptions versus just a few.
Tamar Sapir: Yeah, and it again them based on patient preferences. what we're hearing from patients, ⁓ and regardless of what age, right? And actually the patients between the ages of fifty to seventy are the most engaged on our platform. and it's there is something really ⁓ magical and that's in their own words, about how the system is really easy to use because true all they need to do is tap their phone against the label. They don't need to open an app. They don't don't need to remember anything. It's just and when it they tap and they can see in big words the name of the medication, oftentimes when they have to look at the they don't even it's really hard for them even to see the what is the what is the medication they're taking. When they can see it in big screens and it can even speak it out loud to them. ⁓ it and then when they see the success message and ⁓ some kind of a ⁓ motivating messaging, it really is engaging them and kind of like they wanna see they wanna engage with this over time so that there is that behavioral piece to it. and then it really depends. They if they want to use the label affixed to one of the medications, and that's how they're using the medications, then sh. y they should go ahead and do that. But if they're using their pill sorters, that's completely fine as well. So the the mid the label itself can be affixed to however they're currently using in regular to use their medication schedule. If they don't want to use the label at all, they can just go they can get the text message and within the message they can confirm that they have recorded their entire schedule. So they can really, it's really designed for their patient preferences and how they're taking their medication. So they can record it as a bundle or select or unselect certain medications within this bundle as well.
Erin O'Brien: Is that you mentioned that it was a kind of a behavioral change, but I'm wondering, I mean, you have a ninety-seven percent compliance rate, which is amazing. Which is it is it the behavioral changing that behavior, is it psychological, like I'm confirming with my doctor something that's really important for me? Which which one of those are are ⁓ really moving that ninety seven percent?
Tamar Sapir: Yeah, great question. And we're actually looking into it. There are different elements are coming into it. There is one piece is the accountability, right? Like I want to now I'm accountable ⁓ for myself and I also want like there is someone who's gonna watch me. And sometimes it takes about a week to two weeks to get adjusted to the system, to know ⁓
Erin O'Brien: Mm.
Tamar Sapir: When am I am I actually taking my medications? And when do I want the reminders to cook in or any alerts to kick in? when they see that there might, like when there is a a nurse who is calling them to introduce them to the program, or if they're seeing that they're might not necessarily know how to record their doses, there is an element of okay, like building that relationship with my care team members and knowing that there is someone on the other line who will be looking after me and checking in on with Me if I have any challenges. So that starts to build like from week one, relationship and trust between the team members. and also to understand, like there is the opportunity to understand what are your preferences? When are you actually taking your medications? How do you want this program to be beneficial for you? And here is how we can be helpful for you. So when they start to feel like they're not on their own ⁓ and part of the team, ⁓ and don't feel Like penalized in any way, right? Like it's not about you reporting your doses and someone a big brother looking at you. No, it's really to empower you in your own journey. There is an element of that they can see their own data and they can see their own adherence scores and they they start to ⁓ their own ⁓ progress lines and their own goals. That's when we start to see, and like once they're like after the 10 days mark passes, you can see that these patients remain on the program. We have studies over one year and and the longitudinal engagement is is really high and remarkable.
Erin O'Brien: That's amazing. That's amazing. So you work with pharmaceutical companies and large health systems. How do you how do you work with kind of a that slow moving, so to adopt or what is your what is your go-to-market? How does that work together?
Tamar Sapir: Yeah, yeah. And it's been it took us some time to figure out and we still are, because it is a solution that everyone should care for, right? Like if you're thinking about the health system or pharmacy or health plan or a pharmaceutical company. it took us some time to understand how to define right messaging ⁓ and should who is the lowest hanging fruit to really say, hey, this is a solution I really need and I need it right now. And the our approach has been s ⁓ for the few years, hey, let's validate it and let's ⁓ publish the and look at ⁓ not only from a technology perspective but Does it impact clinical outcomes? And does it reduce healthcare utilization? And what does it mean for the patients? And what does it mean to the health system or to the partner that actually utilizes it? And we've been really fortunate to work with some of the leading champions, ⁓ heads or ⁓ or ⁓ chief pharmacy officer across health systems. They have adopted and embraced the program in many different ways that led to publications of our studies. And that was actually a key decision we made to put a lot of ⁓ invested in in these ⁓ and initiatives that have led into the credibility and the willingness. To look into okay, what does what data do you have? And show A, demonstrate to me that it's working and that patients are actually using it. and we've seen that these have been adopted ⁓ really by pharmaceutical companies who either have used it in research studies or clinical trials. Think about clinical trials.
Erin O'Brien: Yeah.
Tamar Sapir: So today, patients in protocols are using paper pill diaries to write down when they're taking the medications. So for and former sponsors, this is a really good opportunity not only to report and maximize their clinical trial programs, but also to make it much more proactive insightful and ⁓ seamless the patient and improving the patient experience. So clinical trials has been an avenue. We've been doing quite some work, but also in brand companion solutions. So now pharma companies can actually sponsor companion programs that are designed for a specific medication or a brand or a therapeutic area that can be available and then we disseminate it out and working with our health system partners and pharmacy partners to deploy it. And that kind of like leads to now these health systems. Who have adopted the companion program now, they want to offer it to many of their patient populations. They're expanding it and integrating it within their operational workflow. So it kind of like has led to: let's let's give you something, let's let's test it out in a clinical trial setting, and then you start to see that you have much more champions internally that want to start embedding and expanding it within their own networks. And ⁓ down the line, the direction is ⁓ once once the data demonstrates the value, ⁓ we would hope to start reaching out to payers, helplands, to really make it ⁓ expensive possible and to to be able to reach any patients with any condition.
Erin O'Brien: I think ⁓ it it really is a having peer reviewed clinical evidence is huge. You just don't see that typically in the startup world, because things are moving fast and it, you know, measurement sometimes is hard. And ⁓ great that that was a priority ⁓ because that just gives you kind of that evidence that this is ⁓ really helpful and beneficial for patients and for providers alike. ⁓ you've been in business for five years. you've recorded over a million doses and have 40 plus partners. What's the version that exists in the next five years? You talked about clinical trials, but what else?
Tamar Sapir: Yeah. we we really are hoping that this will be available for any patient, ⁓ either they're in chronic or specialty therapy. think of an elderly or an a young population. Like this needs to be like our goal is to make it accessible. So actually within the next few months, we are ⁓ planning to release a native application that's going to be available on ⁓ On any App Store and make freely available for anyone to download and to use. Now, through these programs, We we have different channels where we're still partnering with pharmaceutical companies and health systems and pharmacies. So ⁓ the Connect the Dot program can happen behind the scenes where if you are going to gonna go to your CVS or you know to your Walgreens pharmacy, that is already gonna come as an option for you to use as part of any medication plan. ⁓ you want, and then you can join and share the invitation with your provider or maybe with your specialist or or pharmacists. So our goal is really to connect the dots and synchronize between the entire healthcare ecosystem. and ⁓ if as a patient are willing to share that information with your care team, then they can really optimize the data ⁓ and and insights and the care for you.
Erin O'Brien: How does that then tie back to a patient's EHR in those instances? I think that's some of the struggles that folks have been running into.
Tamar Sapir: Yeah, definitely. And it should it should ⁓ be integrated completely as part of your seamless EHR and like that's a piece of data that should be available both for you and your care team. as part as as soon as a medication is being prescribed, that information can be instantly transferred over to our system and and and seamlessly connected. So if you're looking at your your my chart or any other patient platform, all that information can be embedded directly with these insights.
Erin O'Brien: So it'll show my usage, it'll show, you know, when I haven't taken it. Okay, interesting. ⁓ switching gears, the hardest thing about being a scientist turned CEO? What did you have to learn and unlearn in that process?
Tamar Sapir: Yeah. I think you really need to have different brains or mindsets. as a scientist, you are trained to be a thinker ⁓ and researching asking questions and moving slow and almost not take the next leap until you're 100% ⁓ sure and that's something that I've been trying to unlearn or to fix and correct. It doesn't need to be perfect in order to put it out there or in order to kind of give it to your first cohort or to test it out because it could be a scientist mindset or a perfectionist mindset. I always want, you know, the best version to to be introduced. but I think that from a CEO perspective, you really need to ⁓ make decisions ⁓ and decide when when it's time to to move on. ⁓ it's really important to bring ⁓ the right stakeholders and to bring the right expertise and I think that's something that I've been very fortunate early on to have a very good advisory board. Team members and counselors to complement the elements that may not necessarily have or not necessarily have the experience from an operational perspective or from a CEO perspective. So having that at those additional insights and expertise and to be able to bounce off ideas, oftentimes it feels alone, right? When you're a single solo CEO and founder, you have your team, but you Also, need to make decisions that's best for the company, and like how strategically can you operate, and kind of a thinking big picture. So I think that's one piece you have to think deep into the research, the product, ⁓ the day-to-day, the operations, but then there is the element of like what's the path forward or how to make a decision in terms of who do we focus on, right? Like from a go to market perspective and and the business strategy perspective.
Erin O'Brien: How many people are part of the team right now?
Tamar Sapir: we are still a small team of ⁓ about ten members. but very lean and everyone kind of pull up s pull ups the sleeves and and you know, very, passionate about what we're doing. I think that's really what defines the team. everyone ⁓ has ⁓ exciting vision ⁓ is willing to to invest in terms of the the focus of the programme and the results and how can we maximize the the output.
Erin O'Brien: If you were to give a current founder who may be an academic, who may be, you know, a researcher right now, what sort of advice would you give them as they're looking to grow their business?
Tamar Sapir: would say go it. don't hesitate. with your ⁓ and ⁓ and delay things. So that that probably will be my first advice. and and as long as seek for excellence, I would definitely say that you're following a point and ensure that you understand your audience and if it's within the healthcare, understand not only your customers but the key stakeholders that are using your solution and product and and and do the right research to To investigate and to understand the pain points, but then having those conversations early on. Don't keep your ideas with yourself. put it out there, put it out there to the universe and ⁓ and and be open to it and ⁓ and open to the people who are willing to ⁓ join in that journey.
Erin O'Brien: Tamar, thank you so much for your time and for joining me on No Operating Manual. I can't wait to see what happens next.
Tamar Sapir: Thank you, Erin. It was a pleasure.
