Prescriby raises a $2.1M round led by Crowberry Capital
Prescriby, the Canadian-Icelandic company of digital treatment plan software that prevents medication addiction, has secured $2.1 million in a funding round led by Crowberry Capital with participation from investors from Canada, Denmark, and Iceland.
“Prescriby is tackling a very serious problem that has big consequences for many. What got us interested is the proactive approach the solution has to offer where it can prevent addiction from developing in the first place. Most of the competitors are focusing on treating addiction,” says Hekla Arnardóttir, partner at Crowberry Capital.
Prescriby's solution enables safe management of necessary opioid prescriptions and creates a pathway for clinicians to provide tapering treatments to patients who have developed physical tolerance and dependence. In addition to opioids, the software is currently being used for benzodiazepine, SNRI, and gabapentinoid tapering plans.
Through a partnership with the Icelandic Ministry of Health, Prescriby has begun their nationwide implementation project in Iceland, entered into a commercialization project in Canada, and is beginning a controlled cohort clinical trial in Denmark later this year. The current round will focus on scaling within Canada as well as introducing Prescriby to the US market as a clinical decision support tool for prescription opioids and other addictive medications.
Dr. Kjartan Thorsson, Prescriby’s CEO and co-founder, has domain expertise in prescription opioids having been involved in prescribing and managing post-operative patients while practicing medicine at the National University Hospital of Iceland, where the idea was originally created.
“I was discharging around 30 patients on prescription opioids every week where you can estimate that one out of ten patients will develop some level of addiction. It became clear to me after some research and outreach to colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, that prescribers lacked tools and resources to be able to provide safer treatments from the first prescription as well as tapering long-term users. We should be focusing on making the treatments that are already being provided safer if we’re being serious about reducing the harm from the opioid crisis."
Kjartan adds, "With Fentanyl now having taken over Oxycontin as the most used illicit opioid and multiplying the harm to those who have developed addiction, we should do everything we can to provide early intervention and prevent people from ending up with addiction.”
Prescriby's team is currently based in Iceland and Newfoundland and has plans for further expansion in Canada and the US in the coming months.
