Health Makers: How a Near Tragedy Inspired the Drug Management App Medisafe

NAME: Omri Shor

AGE: 39

TITLE AND COMPANY: CEO, Medisafe  

After graduating from the University of Haifa and getting a graduate degree at the College of Management Academic Studies (the Collman) in Rishon LeZion, Israel, Omri Shor had a big idea. He was going to build a company that dealt in boat rentals. It would be called Marina123.com, and “the idea was to try and make renting a yacht as easy as 123,” says Shor, now 39. “We called it the ‘Airbnb of yachting.’”

It was an ambitious plan, but there were hurdles and language barriers. “Today, there are companies that are very successful in this space,” he says. “We were very early.”

But he was determined to put his degree to good use. Seven years ago, he had his chance.

It was a Friday night and Shor was at his parents’ home in Haifa for Shabbat dinner. His father, who is diabetic and has high blood pressure, asked his son if he had seen him inject his insulin.

Shor said no.

“My father heard it as ‘No, he hadn’t injected it,’ so he did it again,” Shor recalls. “It was the second one in a row and his glucose levels dropped to 38 mg/dL — nearing diabetic shock. He was two hours from dying.”

Challenges of Managing Medications

His father survived, but the experience was terrifying. It hit Shor that managing medication was a huge problem for so many people, especially in later life. There was so much to keep track of:

• How many pills did I take?
• Did I take my prescribed dosage, too much, or too little?
• Have I already taken my medicine today?

“Medication management is a big thing,” he says.

He decided to make it his mission to solve this problem. He and his brother, Rotem, cofounded Medisafe, a medication management company and app.

“Imagine my father is taking medication three times a day over 25 years,” says Shor, who lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with his wife and two children. “How do you remember if it’s yesterday or today? When patients don’t take their meds, they don’t take them for many reasons. One reason would be that they forgot to take them or that they forgot to fill their prescription or that they don’t trust their doctor.”

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about half of the population who take medications globally don’t take them as prescribed. About 700,000 people a year suffer emergencies similar to the one Shor's father experienced, and about 125,000 people die annually because of mistakes made with medications, either by taking too much or too little. An estimated $290 billion is lost each year from medication mismanagment.

Helping Patients Take Prescription Drugs Properly

Medisafe can help prevent this, Shor says, because it basically manages everything a patient needs to know about their medication and how to use it. It also alerts them when they’ve taken a pill, or failed to do so. “We accompany that person on their journey from the moment they get prescribed so they’re exposed to the right content and benefits, and they are aware of what they need to be aware of,” he says.

Even better: Rather than patients paying to use the service, pharmaceutical companies do. Medisafe's partners include Merck and Boehringer Ingelheim, among others.

It’s a win-win for pharma: “Manufacturers are very interested in managing the patient experience and making sure they take their meds correctly,” Shor says. “So, they pick up the bill and pay us to help them manage their patients using our solution.”

Improved Adherence Rates

The results have been positive. Medisafe has about five million registered users worldwide. Nearly 22 percent of them have become more adherent after using the app. A study published in October 2017 in BMJ Open found that Medisafe had a “positive impact on patients’ adherence rates.”

Since not everyone is technologically savvy, especially older patients, Medisafe connects family members to the app, too. If, for example, your father forgets to take his medication, you would get notified, possibly preventing a medical disaster.

“That's why family members need to install the app as well,” says Shor.