Maniolas

MANILA, Philippines – Mobile health technology company mClinica is expanding its presence in Southeast Asia after getting funds from Kickstart Ventures Inc. of Ayala-led Globe Telecom Inc. Kickstart, together with foreign venture capitalists 500 Startups from Silicon Valley and IMJ Investment partners from Japan, made the infusion to mClinica to bankroll its expansion in Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. This is Kickstart’s 19th investment in just over two years, underscoring the Globe subsidiary’s role as the Philippines’ most active institutional fund for seed and early-stage digital startups. mClinica is the largest pharmacy network in the country with a growing network of over 1,400 pharmacies and access to over 20 million customers. “We have been waiting for a solution like this. With mClinica, we now have new ways to access the pharmacy channel more and gather data in the process. This was non-existent before,” Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Philippines country manager Lito Ardeta said. Farouk Meralli, a 28-year old Harvard School of Public Health graduate, worked as an executive in strategy and management for Roche, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer before taking the entrepreneurial route and founding mClinica.  Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 Meralli discovered first-hand the challenges pharmaceutical companies face in many emerging markets. “While emerging markets were growing rapidly, we did not have access to the same data we had in more mature markets,” Meralli said. Through mClinica, drug companies could reach pharmacies on a large scale through mobile phones and furthermore create programs that help patients Read More …