{"id":23617,"date":"2021-03-29T04:50:51","date_gmt":"2021-03-29T04:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rbsitsoftwaresolution.com\/blog\/ghanas-redbird-raises-1-5m-seed-to-expand-access-to-rapid-medical-testing-in-sub-saharan-africa.html"},"modified":"2021-03-29T04:50:51","modified_gmt":"2021-03-29T04:50:51","slug":"ghanas-redbird-raises-1-5m-seed-to-expand-access-to-rapid-medical-testing-in-sub-saharan-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/ghanas-redbird-raises-1-5m-seed-to-expand-access-to-rapid-medical-testing-in-sub-saharan-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"Ghana\u2019s Redbird raises $1.5M seed to expand access to rapid medical testing in sub-Saharan Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

For patients and healthcare professionals to <\/span>properly<\/span> track and manage illnesses, especially chronic ones, healthcare needs to <\/span>be decentralized<\/span>. <\/span>It also needs to be more convenient, with a patient\u2019s health information able to follow them wherever they go<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Redbird<\/a>, a Ghanaian health tech startup that allows easy access to convenient testing and ensures that doctors and patients can view the details of those test results at any time, announced today that it has raised a $1.5 million seed investment<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Investors who participated in the round include Johnson Johnson Foundation<\/a>, Newton Partners<\/a> (via the Imperial Venture Fund) and Founders Factory Africa<\/a><\/span>. This brings the company\u2019s total amount raised to date to $2.5 million.<\/span><\/p>\n

The health tech company <\/span>was launched<\/span> in 2018 by Patrick Beattie<\/a>, Andrew Quao<\/a> and Edward Grandstaff<\/a><\/span>. <\/span>As a founding scientist at a medical diagnostics startup in Boston, Beattie\u2019s job was to develop new rapid diagnostic tests<\/span>. During his time in Accra in 2016, he met Quao, a trained pharmacist in Ghana at a hackathon whereupon talking found out that their interests in medical testing overlapped.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beattie told TechCrunch that while he saw many exciting new tests in development in the U.S., he didn\u2019t see the same in Ghana<\/span>. <\/span>Quao, who is familiar with how Ghanaians use pharmacies as their primary healthcare point, felt perturbed that these pharmacies weren\u2019t doing more than transactional purchases<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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They both settled that pharmacies in Ghana needed to imbibe the world of medical testing. Although both didn\u2019t have a tech background, they realized technology was necessary to execute this<\/span>. <\/span>So, they enlisted the help of Grandstaff to be CTO of Redbird while Beattie and Quao became CEO and COO, <\/span>respectively<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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L-R: Patrick Beattie (CEO), Andrew Quao (COO) and Edward Grandstaff (CTO). Imge Credits: Redbird<\/p>\n

Redbird enables pharmacies in Ghana to add to their pharmacy services rapid diagnostic testing for 10 different health conditions<\/span>. <\/span>These tests include anaemia, blood sugar, blood pressure, BMI, cholesterol, Hepatitis B, malaria, typhoid, prostate cancer screening and pregnancy<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Also<\/span>, Redbird provides pharmacies with the necessary equipment, supplies and software to make this possible<\/span>. <\/span>The software \u2014\u00a0 Redbird Health Monitoring \u2014 <\/span>is networked<\/span> across all partner pharmacies and enables patients to build medical testing records after going<\/span> through five-minute medical tests offered through these pharmacies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rather than employing a SaaS model that Beattie says is not well appreciated by its customers, Redbird\u2019s revenue model <\/span>is based<\/span> on the supply of disposable test strips<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPharmacies who partner with Redbird gain access to the software and all the ways Redbird supports our partners for free as long as they <\/span>purchase<\/span> the consumables through us<\/span>. This aligns our revenue with their success, which <\/span>is aligned<\/span> with patient usage,\u201d said the CEO.<\/span><\/p>\n

This model is being used with more than 360 pharmacies in Ghana, <\/span>mainly<\/span> in Accra and Kumasi. It was half this number in 2019, which Redbird has since doubled despite the pandemic. <\/span>These pharmacies have recorded over 125,000 tests in the past three years from more than 35,000 patients registered on the platform<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Redbird will use the seed investment <\/span>to grow its operations within Ghana and expand to new markets that remain undisclosed<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2018, Redbird participated in the Alchemist Accelerator <\/a><\/span>just<\/span> a few months before launch<\/span>. <\/span>It was the second African startup after fellow Ghanaian health tech startup mPharma<\/a> to take part in the six-month program<\/span>. The company also got into Founders Factory Africa last April.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ghana\u2019s mPharma partners with Ethiopian conglomerate to enter its eighth market<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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According to Beattie, most of the disease burden Africans might experience in the future will be chronic diseases. For instance, diabetes is projected to grow by 156% over the next 25 years<\/span>. <\/span>This is why he sees decentralized, digitized healthcare as the next leapfrog opportunity for sub-Saharan Africa<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cChronic disease is exploding and with it, patients <\/span>require<\/span> much more frequent interaction with the healthcare system<\/span>. <\/span>The burden of chronic disease will make a health system that is <\/span>highly<\/span> centralized impossible,\u201d he said.<\/span> \u201c<\/span>Like previous leapfrog events, this momentum is happening all over the world, not <\/span>just<\/span> in Africa. Still, the state of the current infrastructure means that healthcare systems here will <\/span>be forced<\/span> to innovate and adapt before health systems elsewhere <\/span>are forced<\/span> to, and therein lies the opportunity,\u201d he said<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But while the promise of technology and data is exciting, it\u2019s important to realize that health tech only provides value if it matches patient behaviors and preferences<\/span>. <\/span>It doesn\u2019t <\/span>really<\/span> matter what amazing improvements you can realize with data if you can\u2019t build the data asset and offer a service that patients actually value<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beattie knows this all too well and says Redbird respects these preferences. For him, the next course of action will be to <\/span>play a larger role in the world\u2019s developing ecosystem where healthcare systems build decentralised networks and move closer to the average patient<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Healthcare by 2028 will be doctor-directed, patient-owned and powered by visual technologies<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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This decentralised approach is what attracted U.S. and South African early-stage VC firm Newtown Partners to cut a check. Speaking on behalf of the firm, Llew Claasen, the managing partner, had this to say<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited about Redbird\u2019s decentralised business model that enables rapid diagnostic testing at the point of primary care in local community pharmacies<\/span>. <\/span>Redbird\u2019s digital health record platform has the potential to drive significant value to the broader healthcare value chain and is a vital step toward improving healthcare outcomes in Africa<\/span>. <\/span>We look forward to supporting the team as they prove out their\u00a0 business model and scale across the African continent<\/span>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunchIt\/~3\/L21DttBAhks\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For patients and healthcare professionals to properly track and manage illnesses, especially chronic ones, healthcare needs to be decentralized. It also needs to be more convenient, with a patient\u2019s health <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23618,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-23617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-enterprise-software","tag-enterprise"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t