Specialty Medication Access Platform RxLightning Raises $17.5M
RxLightning, which has created a platform for streamlining specialty medication access and affordability, has closed a $17.5 million Series A investment.
The funding round for the New Albany, Ind.-based company was led by LRVHealth, with participation from McKesson Ventures and existing investors Novartis (dRx Capital), Onco360 (BrightSpring Health Services), Hearst Ventures, and HealthX Ventures. This investment brings RxLightning’s total capital raised since inception to $20.5 million.
RxLightning says it enables healthcare providers to leverage a streamlined workflow to complete the multi-step specialty medication onboarding process in a matter of minutes. The company says its MedAccess Ecosystem is an integrated platform that provides transparency into the patient access and affordability journey for doctors, patients, specialty pharmacies, and drug manufacturers, reducing administrative burden and enabling onboarding support in real time.
“Many people have tried to fix the slow, manual specialty medication onboarding process, but they’ve approached it with a single drug, pharmacy, or isolated part of the process in mind. RxLightning is the first to provide an end-to-end solution that covers the entire market – from every medication and destination to every stakeholder in the process,” said Julia Regan, CEO and founder at RxLightning, in a statement. “This new investment will help us further scale our medication access capabilities, support infrastructure and personnel growth, and maintain the unprecedented rate at which we’ve grown our partner base – all while receiving strategic guidance from leading industry experts.”
The specialty medication market represents more than half of total drug spending in the U.S., reaching $301 billion in 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Despite this growing reliance on advanced therapies, accessing these medications remains a slow, manual, and costly process. Every specialty medication currently requires a custom paper form that a provider or patient must complete. These forms are then pushed through a manual process outside the electronic health record (EHR), which can result in significant care delays.
RxLightning says it has digitized forms for over 1,200 specialty drugs with custom logic and smart-pick menus, and continuously adds forms for new medications as they enter the market. In addition, the modular platform automates the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REM) program, confirms patient eligibility and coverage, and streamlines enrollment in financial assistance programs to further eliminate access barriers.
“RxLightning addresses the tedious administrative burden faced by providers when trying to initiate patients on specialty medications,” said Carrie Williams, partner for McKesson Ventures, in a statement. “The complexity will only increase as new drugs entering the market require even more nuanced clinical, financial, and logistical considerations to ensure patients get access to medications as efficiently as possible. It’s rare to find a company that is so truly aligned across pharma, payer, provider, and patient needs.”
RxLightning is available at no cost to healthcare providers to help them get patients started on specialty medications.
