Jasper Health Wins 1st PBMI Innovation Challenge

Jasper Health and its app for people who have survived cancer won the first Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute® Innovation Challenge.

The year-old company, based in New York City, has developed an app and platform that guides people through the experience of cancer survivorship. The app has biometric, medication monitoring and other features designed to help people who have received a cancer diagnosis to deal with the medical and mental health aspects of the disease.

The app has 10,000 users.

Tim Patno, head of growth, said the Jasper has used social media to promote the app and benefited from digital equivalent of word of mouth. “The message has just been spreading because those who are using the product find significant value in it and are happy to share their stories,” he said.

Tim Patno

The innovation was designed to foster a patient-centric innovation community. Projects and programs were judged by practicality, impact and forward-thinking focus. More than 20 companies competed in the challenge. Jasper Health was among the five finalists voted on yesterday by virtual and in-patient attendees of the 2021 Annual National Conference of the Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute.®

The prize for winning the challenge is a six-figure marketing and education campaign on the Managed Healthcare Executive® and Formulary Watch multichannel media platforms. Managed Healthcare Executive® is the official journal of PBMI.

Jasper has just under 20 employees, according to Patno, but no revenues yet. Patno said the company is looking to enter into partnerships with payers, provider organizations and drugmakers. Yesterday, Employer Direct Healthcare, a Dallas-based company that markets to elf-insured employers, announced that it had entered into a partnership with Jasper.

Patno said Jasper is aiming to become part of employers’ healthcare offerings by benefiting employees and reducing costs by, among other things, improving medical adherence. The current version of the platform allows patients to enter their medication schedule into the app. Patno said the goal is to eventually become integrated into electronic health record systems so medication schedules would be automatically entered.