Scaling Photon

I remember sitting in the back seat of my mother’s Ford Windstar as we pulled into a pharmacy drive-through in suburban Indianapolis. I was probably ten-years-old, and feeling quite sick. We’d just driven a comically short distance across a parking lot from the pediatrician’s office. I watched, amazed, as my mom stuffed a piece of paper into a mysterious tube and pressed a button to engage the pneumatic return system. My medication appeared via the same tube only minutes later. Nearly 25 years later, I’m still fascinated by the physical and digital pipes that enable us to access medication.

In late 2021, Michael Rado, Sam Kotlove, and I co-founded Photon with the intention to redesign the prescription experience around the consumer. We’re nerds with deep experience in consumer tech at companies like Microsoft, Betaworks, and Wayfair. Before Photon, Rado and I worked together on clinical tools at Thirty Madison, and I worked with Sam on pharmacy delivery at Walmart.

Today, I’m proud to announce that we’ve closed a $9M round co-led by Notation and Flare Capital with investment from Floating Point, GG1, Ritual, Headwater, and Scrub Capital. Our earliest backers Susa, BoxGroup, Long Journey, and Cendana also participated in this round, bringing our total raised to $16.4M. Our angel investors include the founders of PillPack, Commure, Carbon Health, Quartet, Forward, Summer Health, Hone Health, Candid Health, Healthie, and other digital health veterans.

Over the past few years our Brooklyn-based team has quietly built one of the largest prescription networks in America – prescribers use Photon to send more than 70k prescriptions to patients every month. In that time we’ve assembled an incredible team of 18 with experience from CoverMyMeds, Palantir, Elevance, ZipDrug, Chapter, and PillPack.

We’ve designed a digital prescription experience around the needs of the consumer and our technology now supports prescribers at Sesame, Weight Watchers, Blueberry Pediatrics, Measured, Summer Health, Found, Sana Care, Modern Pediatrics, and NormanMD – to name a few. So far, we’ve focused on primary care, pediatrics, and obesity care because these prescribers often spend the most time helping their patients navigate issues at the pharmacy.

Our customers love Photon because our digital prescription serves as an extension of the quality care they provide to patients. Most importantly, the product saves time for clinical teams by reducing both outbound calls and inbound support requests from patients regarding their prescriptions. When there's an issue at the pharmacy, instead of a provider receiving phone calls, a patient can change pharmacies on their own or text our support team for help.

Sesame, an affordable care marketplace, measured a 71% decrease in prescription support requests after integrating with Photon. Michael Botta, one of the co-founders of Sesame, said that Photon “shares our consumer-first philosophy,” enabling the company to provide convenient care at scale. “It makes a complex task easier for our patients and their families,” Botta said.

The Photon experience is simple for patients:

• Once a prescriber writes a prescription, the patient (or their caregiver) receives a secure Photon link via text message.
• A patient can access their digital prescription in the browser – no mobile app required.
• A patient can select the most convenient option from a list of pharmacies – whether it’s mail order like Amazon, an independent pharmacy, or chain like Walgreens.
• We send a notification when the medication is ready for pickup or when it’s delivered.

If the medication isn’t available at the pharmacy or the pharmacy isn’t open, our team will notify the patient within minutes. If needed, the patient can select a new pharmacy to pick up their medication.

Soon, Photon will show medication prices and pickup or delivery estimates, before a patient selects a pharmacy!

Despite the innovations in every aspect of our digital lives, the pharmacy experience has only gotten worse – long lines, drug shortages, and high costs plague millions of Americans. The rise of branded drugs, discount cards, high deductible plans, and complex formularies have made the experience of paying for medication confusing and out of reach. New online pharmacies have created genuinely great patient experiences, but most haven’t achieved the scale needed to fundamentally alter the industry in favor of consumers.

When my mom walked out of that doctor's office in the early 2000s, she was holding a prescription written on a physical piece of paper. This also came with this odd responsibility to physically shuttle handwritten clinical information between two organizations, but she at least knew what was going on.

With legacy e-prescriptions, patients are still on the hook to call the pharmacy themselves if they want to know if a medication is in stock, ready for pickup, or covered by insurance. Getting a prescription transferred still involves a phone call or fax between pharmacies, which only works if both are open. It’s often easier to ask a prescriber to send a new prescription instead. After all that, most patients still don’t find out the cost of a medication until they’ve arrived at the counter!

Photon is not just restoring the agency patients had with paper prescriptions; we’re building the trusted marketplace to help consumers shop with their prescription in hand. If anything goes wrong along the way, the consumer has the power to move a prescription to a different pharmacy – no phone calls needed!

We're looking to modernize the prescription marketplace, but we remain bullish on the pharmacy itself. These businesses provide access to some of the most important care in our communities! A consumer might prefer to get their prescriptions filled at a local store where they have a strong relationship with their pharmacist. Others might prefer mail order delivery, but the choice should be in the consumer’s hands.

Over the next few years, every prescription in America will be digital, not just because it’s a better consumer experience, but because it improves access to the treatments patients need. Photon may be up against a monopoly, but we fundamentally believe that our healthcare system is overdue for consumer agency and transparency.

Are you looking for prescribing tools that provide a modern prescription experience for your patients and save time for your clinical staff? Sign up here.

Interested in joining the team? We're hiring across engineering, sales, product, marketing, and operations! Apply here.