US-based online health community platform MedHelp has been acquired by Physicians Interactive (PI), a healthcare company backed by the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund.
In January 2012 the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, a subsidiary of pharmaceutical company Merck, invested $8.5m in PI in 2012, with a further $8.5m in milestone payments pledged. It subsquently took a controlling stake in the company in August 2013.
Merck Global Health Innovation financed PI’s acquisition of MedHelp, though details of the acquisition have not been released.
MedHelp enables consumers to use the web and mobile devices to track their own health, share information and receive support from their physicians. The software can also be combined with health and fitness technology such as Fitbit.
Donato Tramuto, chief executive of Physicians Interactive, said: “MedHelp’s rapid growth in the consumer health space is exciting. Together, we hope to deliver better patient experiences by matching MedHelp’s healthcare quantification and socialisation solutions for consumers with PI’s solutions for physicians, such as Omnio, our peer-to-peer healthcare content-sharing app.”