Blink Health Secures $90 Million Series B Funding to Expand Prescription Drug Price Comparison Platform with Pharmacy Partnerships

VCBeat has learned that New York-based startup Blink Health recently secured $90 million in Series B financing, led by the renowned 8VC. In its Series A round in April 2016, the company already received $75 million from 8VC, bringing the total capital injected by 8VC into Blink Health to $165 million.

The company will use this latest round of funding to enhance the alignment between its platform technology and the pharmaceutical market, hire more R&D engineers, develop new partnerships, and further expand into a broader prescription drug market. But what exactly is it about this platform that attracted 8VC to invest twice, and what sets it apart?

VCBeat has learned that Blink Health was co-founded in 2014 by father and son Matthew Chaiken and Geoffrey Chaiken, primarily operating in the biotechnology and healthcare sectors.

In early 2016, the company launched the Blink Health online application (including Android, iOS, and desktop client versions). This service partners with pharmacies to offer group-purchase pricing, aiming to provide the most affordable medications across the United States. For consumers not covered by insurance plans, Blink facilitates payments through their FSA or HSA accounts.

Each customer can access pricing information for over 15,000 medications through the client platform. By purchasing online, customers can pick up their prescriptions at any pharmacy across the United States. Although medication plans vary by individual and prescription drug prices fluctuate, some user reports indicate savings of up to 95%.

Meanwhile, the user base of many digital platforms consists primarily of young people who are heavily reliant on smartphones for daily transactions, whereas the majority of consumers with actual demand are elderly individuals. Blink’s technology is highly user-friendly, enabling older adults to easily master it and make independent purchases.

Within just over a year of its official launch, the app has expanded to cover more than 58,000 pharmacies across the United States, with major retailers such as CVS, Target, and Walmart serving as its partners. Currently, 100,000 physicians nationwide—approximately one in every ten prescribers—are recommending the Blink service to their patients, and the platform already boasts over one million active users engaging with its mobile application and online services.

The fact is that more than half of consumers across the United States cannot afford high-priced, life-saving medications, and 30% of prescriptions are ultimately abandoned by patients due to prohibitive pharmacy costs. Moreover, 30 million Americans remain uninsured. Blink Health is leveraging technology to enhance transparency in the pharmaceutical market, address the issue of exorbitant drug prices nationwide, and is committed to building a medication purchasing platform with nationwide coverage.

VCBeat has learned that the most significant positive development for Blink Health is the growing interest from multiple brand-name pharmaceutical companies in collaborating with it. Previously, the company’s business focused primarily on generic drugs (which account for approximately 90% of all prescriptions in the United States). It is now actively partnering with major companies such as Lilly and Arbor to expand into the brand-name drug sector and plans to leverage its latest funding round to explore additional partnerships.

Through such collaboration, the prices of brand-name drugs will become fully transparent to consumers, and pharmaceutical manufacturers will, for the first time, need to address and establish discount mechanisms directly with consumers.