Category: News

Company aims to validate a digital solution within the cardiovascular field and to further develop it together with leading Nordic university hospital

Stockholm, Sweden: Digital health company Pilloxa today announced that they have received €580k in funding from the EU’s EUROSTARS program. The company is developing digital patient-centric solutions and will, together with the University of Oslo, now validate an innovation that supports the patient to take their medication as prescribed and further develop the solution to increase the quality and effectiveness of drug treatment in both the healthcare setting and during clinical trials. Dan Atar, Professor of Cardiology at the University of Oslo, is responsible for the implementation of the ASTORIA study which will show the effect of Pilloxa’s solution upon adherence to the medicine Rivaroxaban. The study is the first of its kind in the field and the hope is that the results will lay the foundation for the next step in patient-centered drug development and treatment. The funds will also be used for further development of a complete digital system that facilitates the process both for the patients included in the study and for the investigator. In addition, the reliability of the collected data will be strengthened, which can both reduce costs and be considered more ethical. Bayer and Pilloxa are already partners and Bayer is also a financial sponsor of the ASTORIA project.

Clinical trials today are extremely time consuming, expensive and one of the most under-digitized industries in the world. Ensuring patients take their medication is still mainly documented with pen and paper. The ASTORIA study is meant to validate the solution in a real world clinical setting with the goal of providing statistical significant evidence that Pilloxa’s solution can improve persistence to medication in newly diagnosed patients with atrial fibrillation. The clinical study will be multicenter and use the full suite of Pilloxa services to enable remote patient monitoring. The data and input acquired during the trial will be used to further develop Pilloxa’s solution and expand its commercial reach. The funding will be split between Pilloxa and the University of Oslo, with the majority going to Pilloxa.

Leading the project at the University of Oslo is world-renowned cardiologist Dan Atar who holds a full professorship in cardiology at Oslo University and a visiting associate professorship at Johns Hopkins University. In addition to his professorship, he is the Head of Research at Oslo Hospital. Professor Atar has published over 420 papers along with serving as Secretary/Treasurer at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and Chairman of the Working Group on Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy within ESC.

“I am excited to collaborate with people who create innovations that make a real difference for patients. Pilloxa is a promising technology which I believe will make a significant impact on how patients adhere to their life-saving medication plans. After this successful fundraising from the EU by the EUROSTARS program, we will be able to run the ASTORIA study which will prove how Pilloxa can help the cardiovascular patient population,” says Professor Atar.

“Pilloxa would like to thank the European Commission and the intergovernmental innovation network EUREKA for selecting Pilloxa to receive funding and for supporting our mission of working towards optimizing clinical trials through technology. There has never been a greater need for supporting patients in their journey and improving the efficiency of clinical trials. Pilloxa’s focus on patients’ needs coupled with our user friendly technology can make a great impact. This funding will help us clinically validate our technological solutions in a large patient population while further developing our integration with Health Care Providers and trials,” says Francesco Mazzotta, CEO of Pilloxa AB.

“There is no future for our healthcare system and development of new medications if we do not put patients first, give them personalized support and the possibility to handle both healthcare and studies in a way that fits their lives. This requires partnerships and projects like ASTORIA where all the different stakeholders work closely to make a system that works instead than a patchwork of decoupled solutions,” says Per Nilsson, Chief Product Officer at Pilloxa AB.

The project is expected to begin in Autumn of this year and will continue until 2022.

About Pilloxa AB: Based in Sweden’s capital city of Stockholm, Pilloxa creates digital and remote solutions to optimize clinical trials and patient support programs through supporting medical adherence and patient retention. Founded in 2015, Pilloxa has been working to improve the lives of patients.

For questions, contact:

Alexa Edström, Head of Marketing,

At Pilloxa, we are bringing digital and patient-centric solutions to clinical studies. My job makes me very curious about the healthcare industry, and it was therefore thrilling for me to experience a clinical trial firsthand last month in the midst of a pandemic unlike anything we have seen during our lifetimes.

I want to take a moment to express our gratitude for healthcare personnel who have been working so hard these past few months. This article is to shed light on my personal experience during a clinical trial and to showcase that there is still a lot of potential for further improvement, especially when it comes to being more patient-centric.

So how did I end up in a clinical trial? A little over a month ago, I received the opportunity to be a clinical trial patient when I was enrolled into a COVID-19 trial in Stockholm, Sweden. From both a personal and clinical perspective, I was treated well and taken good care of. Yet there were some coincidental occurrences which I will explain in the following paragraphs that highlight a need for greater patient-centricity within the clinical study process.

To begin with, I became very ill last month with flu symptoms. After hearing about the opportunity to participate in a COVID-19 related clinical trial, I was told to go to the hospital and announce my presence at a specific reception. When I got there, I was told by staff that they had not heard about the trial. Understandably I was asked to leave because I had COVID-19 symptoms. The staff directed me to go to another building which I was unable to find, leaving me confused. I managed to call the person in charge of the trial. They answered but were busy, so they sent a text to another person inside of the hospital who thereafter called me back and managed to sneak me in through some sort of backdoor…

“The student doctor did not know and simply said: ‘Google it.’ This left me shocked.”

Once I entered the patient room, I was told by the student doctor that I needed to sign the informed consent document as he handed me a pen to sign. It consisted of two papers, with the signatory page on top and the trial information page behind it. It was very hard to get a clear sense of what the study was about despite the information provided on the second page. Apart from that they will draw blood from me and take several uncomfortable nasal tests, it felt more “optional” for the patient to know more about the trial. Since there would be 9 tests in total, I asked what the tests were for and only then did I receive more information that I was unable to have seen before in the previously provided informed consent form.

The tests went smoothly and the student doctor ensured I was comfortable. After all of the tests were complete, my girlfriend was instructed to send my phone number to another person who would deliver the results of the tests. Before leaving, I asked what the study hoped to show and when they expected results. The student doctor did not know and simply said: “Google it.” This left me shocked.

After returning home, I received a phone call from the student doctor. He had forgotten to take my personal identification number and to ask me some important questions regarding my well-being that they needed for the trial. I asked myself, could they not have done that while I was at the hospital? The whole process was confusing, unclear, and lacking a sufficient onboarding. It left me wondering what other clinical trials are like as a patient. Granted it is a stressful time in the midst of a pandemic, yet the potential for improvement was clear.

“The need for patient-centricity as the core to improvements within the clinical studies space is more urgent than ever.”

Now recovered from my illness, which turned out to be something other than Covid-19, I am returning to my work at Pilloxa with new insights to further improve our offerings. The need for patient-centricity as the core to improvements within the clinical studies space is more urgent than ever. Throughout the process, it was clear that things could have been digitalized more. The papers I signed to provide consent, for example, could have been signed digitally. Obtaining my prior health records (including my personal identification number) and contact details should have also been synched digitally. More information in detail about the trial and my role as a patient should have been accessible online. And finally, better communication within the hospital regarding ongoing trials and where to direct patients would have made the process much more clear. Granted, the healthcare system is overwhelmed right now, but it is also an opportunity for the system to improve and utilize the efficiencies brought forward through technology. An improved healthcare system directly impacts all of us. I hope our work at Pilloxa can contribute to improving it.

I would love to hear more personal experiences from others participating in clinical trials, whether it was in the past or recently. Feel free to email me at  with your insights. In the meanwhile, I hope you are all staying healthy and spending time with those you love.

All the best,

Per from Pilloxa

Pilloxa is delighted to announce that Bonnier Ventures, the venture arm of the Bonnier group, has taken the lead in the USD 1.3 million investment round in the company.

Pilloxa, founded in 2015, tackles poor medical adherence within the clinical studies industry by having developed a patient centric adherence platform consisting of smart hardware, tailored smartphone apps, data visualization and analytics. The Pilloxa platform aims to give individualized support and feedback to the user, to make it easier to take medication in the best way possible. Pilloxa has shown adherence of over 90% in indicative studies (with market averages of 60-65%).

Leading pharmaceutical companies Bayer (cardiovascular) and Sandoz/Novartis (transplantation) already trial the company’s services as a new approach to tackling patient non-adherence for drugs in clinical trials and patient support programs. High quality real time data, smart interventions and engaged patients can optimize and speed up clinical trials. In the end, this brings new and improved therapies to the market as well as major cost savings for the society.

“Digital health is one of the key focus areas for Bonnier Ventures. The clinical trial market is of substantial size with great digitalisation potential. Pilloxa, with its data driven solution, tackles one of the industry’s major problems. We look forward to supporting the team as they expand their customer base.”, says Dajana Mirborn, Investment Director at Bonnier Ventures.

“Pilloxa is ready to expand outside Scandinavia with this strengthened investor base. Bonnier Ventures is a great fit for us, we both share a deep commitment for making long lasting impact and have a time perspective spanning generations. Pilloxa is now ready to help thousands of patients by delivering a solution creating conditions for the best possible treatments to patients as fast as possible”, commented Francesco Mazzotta, CEO Pilloxa.

For more information:

Alexa Edstrom, Head of Marketing,

Swedish digital startup company Pilloxa today announced that it is to collaborate with Sandoz Nordics on using Pilloxa’s smart pillbox in the field of transplantation. The initial phase aims to support Swedish transplant clinics with Pilloxa’s innovation in order to facilitate improved medication adherence by transplanted patients.

Pilloxa originates from the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm County Council and the Swedish Royal Institute for Technology and has developed a patient centric adherence platform consisting of an intelligent pillbox, a smartphone app and a cloud solution along with data driven services. The Pilloxa platform aims to give individualized support and feedback to the user to make it easier to take medication in the best way possible.

The need for optimal adherence within the transplantation area is crucial. Living with a transplanted organ means lifelong daily medication and just a few missed doses can result in organ rejection. This puts an enormous pressure on the individual and smart solutions to support adherence could greatly help patients to live a life as active and healthy as possible.

“Pilloxa strives to be at the forefront of a new paradigm within personalised healthcare. We are happy to partner up with Sandoz to tackle the problem of inadequate adherence to medication and we strongly believe that this will increase quality of life for transplanted patients. Together Sandoz and Pilloxa go beyond the pill and aim to empower the patients to improve their own outcomes,“ commented Francesco Mazzotta, CEO Pilloxa.

For more information:

Alexa Edstrom, Head of Marketing, 

Swedish digital health start-up Pilloxa has entered a strategic collaboration with Bayer AB. Pilloxa helps patients take their medicine in time by using an app that is connected to a smart pillbox. Non-compliance, with patients either forgetting or failing to complete complete courses of medication leads to thousands of deaths and billions of Euros in costs for society, every year.

Pilloxa has it roots in the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Region Stockholm and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). The user gets a reminder if they are about to forget their dose. In the app there is also an up-to-date medicines list, a dashboard visualizing the patient’s medication history and a motivational tool. Poor adherence to medication leads to both medical risks for the patients as well as increased strain on the healthcare system, both in terms of time and costs.

By gaining access to both Bayer’s Scandinavian and global network through this new collaboration, Pilloxa will get the opportunity to expand the market and introduce more people to their smart pillbox.

“We see great potential in this innovation. For someone not too familiar with the subject it might seem like a trivial task to take one’s medicine. The reality shows that poor adherence to medication is one of the biggest medicine-related issues that affects healthcare; many, especially chronically ill patients, could get better treatment. We also see that the product can improve the quality of outcomes when following up with the patients”, says Ingalill Hyltander, Commercial Operations Director, Bayer Scandinavia.

“Pilloxa aims to be a leader in patient centric healthcare where innovation and modern technology combine to lay the foundation. We are delighted to collaborate with Bayer to meet one of the biggest problems in healthcare: poor adherence to medication. By joining forces in this way to we are able to lead the development of digital treatment aids that empower the patient and improve the result “beyond the pill”, adds Francesco Mazzotta, CEO at Pilloxa.

The Stockholm Region has presented Pilloxa as one of the Great Innovations within Healthcare.

An article has been published in the Swedish magazine “Goda Innovationer”.

Read more here: http://sllinnovation.se/artikel/nytt-magasin-om-smarta-innovationer

Pilloxa has successfully raised 5,6 MSEK from swedish angel investors, ranging from the previous Global Marketing Director at Spotify Sophia Bendz, the previous CEO of Ratos Susanna Campbell, the founder of Serendipity Innovations Saeid Esmaeilzadeh and the business angel Eva Redhe.

The funding will be utilized to clinically validate the product together with some of the most prominent hospitals in the Stockholm region.

For more info, see (in Swedish): https://digital.di.se/artikel/stjarninvesterare-flockas-runt-digital-pillerlada

Pilloxa is one of the companies awarded a grant from the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova. (article in swedish)

Out of 138 applicants, Pilloxa is one of the companies that was awarded funding from the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova. The funds from “Innovationsprojekt i företag” will be used to verify the business model of Pilloxa in a clinical context. For additional info see the following link (in swedish): Vinnova

The healthcare organization in Stockholm, Stockholm County Council (SLL) has an innovation division where they list inspirational cases of innovations that have spun out of SLL. Pilloxa is listed as the first project on this list and have also received funding two times from the innovation fund within SLL. For more info, see the following link (in swedish): http://sllinnovation.se/inspiration

Pilloxa has received a certificate of registration from the Swedish Medical Products Agency (Läkemedelsverket). Pilloxa is now marked as a medical device class I and can therefore now be marketed in the EU.