Iqvia leads $14m investment round in patient engagement app

02-Jul-2019 - Last updated on 02-Jul-2019 at 15:00 GMT

(Image: Getty/DGLimages)

Belong.Life raises $14m as part of a Series B funding round with plans to expand its patient engagement platform, using and complementing Iqvia’s solutions “to transform patient engagement,” says Iqvia VP.

Belong.Life yesterday announced that it has completed a $14m Series B fundraising round. Iqvia led the funding round and was joined by The Group Ventures and other existing investors.

The company's mobile app "Belong – Beating Cancer Together," is a social network and navigator app for cancer patients, caregivers, and health care professionals. Through the app, the Belong community can anonymously receive and share clinical information.

The funds will be used to develop the mobile app and the company’s new Belong Patient Engagement Platform (PEP), which provides patients, payers, providers, and life science companies with configurable patient engagement tools, navigation, and management services.

AJ Ploszay, PhD, vice president of digital strategy for global technology solutions, Iqvia, said the investment in Belong is part of the company’s strategy “to identify and accelerate disruptive technologies that can improve health care.”

“While maintaining every user’s complete anonymity, Belong’s Patient Powered Network gives researchers access to real world data that provides crucial insight into patient experiences,” a company representative from Belong told us. “PEP leverages AI and our proprietary machine learning technology to provide a hyper personalized patient engagement and research platform.”

The app is designed to improve patient engagement, education, compliance, satisfaction, auto-care coordination, and efficiency, they explained. As per the company’s relationship with Iqvia, the representative said more will be shared at a later stage.

“Through its unique patient engagement platform with machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities, Belong can utilize and complement Iqvia’s solutions to transform patient engagement,” Ploszay told us.

“The health care industry is increasing its focus on patient centricity, engagement, and experience, however, engaging with patients comes with many challenges, including regulations, operational challenges, user acquisition and retention and creating educational content,” he added.

“Iqvia in partnership with Belong believes with our combined domain expertise we may be able to provide a solution that finally meets those needs.”