Forus has raised more than US$160m to expand its AI platform linking doctors, payers, pharmacies and biopharma companies.
The company, formerly known as Tandem, says its system is designed to help more patients access prescribed treatments after a clinical decision has been made.
Sahir Jaggi, chief executive and founder of Forus, said: “Drug discovery is moving faster, but the system that turns it into real-world treatment isn’t.
“We are creating that missing layer. We’re grateful to the clinicians across the country who already trust Forus to get their patients on treatment.
“There’s an opportunity to unlock an order of magnitude more treatment options for doctors and patients, and we are building a team whose ambition matches that goal.”
Forus says its platform is embedded into physician workflows and automates the steps between a doctor choosing a treatment and a patient starting it.
These include insurance authorisation, financial assistance and fulfilment routing, which means directing a prescription to the right pharmacy or supply route.
The company says the platform supports every drug, payer and pharmacy across the US, and is free for doctors and patients.
Forus says it is used by thousands of medical practices and health systems across all 50 US states.
It also says provider adoption has grown 10 times year on year for the past two years, driven entirely by word of mouth.
According to the company, Forus now supports people in nearly 80 per cent of US residential zip codes, including many patients with complex conditions who are now, for the first time, on treatment that could change the course of their disease.
The company says its role in moving prescriptions through the system gives it insight into where providers get stuck, where patients drop out and how medicines perform across populations.
It says this data can help life sciences companies design research, launch new medicines more efficiently and invest in harder-to-treat conditions.
Life sciences companies are organisations involved in fields such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and medical research.
Forus says five of the top 10 global biopharma companies are already working with the platform.
The company said bringing a new drug to market can take 10 to 15 years and cost US$2.6bn on average.
It also said many eligible patients still do not receive treatment after approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, the regulator that assesses medicines before they can be marketed in the US.
Forus is backed by Thrive Capital, General Catalyst, Accel, Bain Capital Ventures, Redpoint, BoxGroup and Pear VC.
Kareem Zaki, partner at Thrive Capital, said: “Too often, patients miss out on the right treatment not because the therapy doesn’t exist, but because the system to deliver it falls short.
“Forus is addressing this from first principles. By making therapies reliably accessible in practice, they can both improve outcomes today and expand what’s possible in medicine over time.”
Pill could help keep weight off after stopping jabs
