Client Spotlight: ANiGENT
As healthcare employees are taking heroic steps to manage COVID-19, they’re facing a critical problem: drug diversion. Knowing hospital workers are focused on saving lives during the pandemic, drug diverters are taking advantage of the current chaos and are swiping medications that are already in short supply.
One of our clients, ANiGENT a St. Louis-based company, has collaborated with the Mayo Clinic to market the first comprehensive drug diversion prevention platform that utilizes machine learning technology to track all users, all medications, in all locations.
Read on to learn more about this revolutionary health technology company in our Q&A with Chuck D’Amato, Chief Product Officer and Managing Partner, and V.C. “Jun” Fabella, Jr., Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Partner.
Q: As valued clients of the Concannon Insurance Agency, please tell us about ANiGENT and a bit about the journey to start this company after successfully founding and selling DYNALABS.
Chuck D’Amato: “I worked at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona for more than 20 years, in various areas, including managing Pharmacy IT and supervising the drug diversion prevention program. Along the way, I discovered we could utilize technology to achieve what full-time employee resources could not.
Many years ago, I became interested in finding a solution for drug diversion after getting involved in a controlled substance tampering event. There was an employee whom we knew was tampering with controlled substances, but we could not confirm it. The damage this person could cause would have been astronomical on many levels, so it was imperative that we find a way to confirm our suspicions.
I taught myself how to code and eventually wrote a program that would become the earliest version of MAAP Analytics, our software platform. I knew this product could detect the problem in a clinical setting. In 2013, I brought this program to the Mayo Clinic and ran it in the anesthesia department. Through the program, we were able to see problems and discrepancies that were undetectable in the past. We identified two employees who were diverting drugs. The implications of these findings helped save lives, protect patients’ wellbeing and preserved the reputation of health systems.
As the need for this technology grew, and technology itself evolved, I began to see other potential opportunities for MAAP.
The fact that MAAP Analytics was built from the clinical ground up helps explain why the platform is such an effective and innovative solution to the healthcare industry. We did not build this system independently or for another setting; we built it alongside the clinical staff workflow.
I met up with Jun and DYNALABS about six years ago and we discussed how our technologies could complement one another specifically to address the prevalent issues with drug diversion and drug tampering. It was a win-win for both groups to collaborate.
We eventually brought our patent-pending solution to Mayo Ventures, the commercialization pathway for Mayo Clinic innovation and, after two years of collaborating, ANiGENT was established.
Jun Fabella: “As Chuck mentioned, Mayo Clinic first approached DYNALABS and me to commercialize an intellectual property they’d been developing for the last eight years. I first declined the opportunity but then about a year later, they asked me to reconsider. In October 2019, we created ANiGENT.
Since we brought our solution to Mayo Ventures, we have been working on developing a commercially-viable product. We’re proud to say that Mayo Clinic became our first client. We’ve already begun work on introducing MAAP Analytics to other facilities in the U.S.”
Q: You are both serial founders and leaders within the health technology industry. What are some important changes you saw this last year in your industry, specific to drug diversion?
Chuck D’Amato: “Operationally, the pandemic has made it more complicated to accurately synthesize the outcomes of data (when it comes to drug diversion in the healthcare setting).
The typical diversion patterns have become more difficult to track because of the chaos that the pandemic brought. Makeshift patient care units were popping up in unlikely places. Hospitals were bringing on contract workers and volunteers without time for background checks. It had become the perfect opportunity for drug diverters to take advantage of the situation.
Our technology platform is designed to help healthcare providers adapt to the numerous and sometimes subtle changes that 2020 has brought.”
Jun Fabella: “Even prior to COVID-19, drug diversion had been an issue in the healthcare setting, affecting at least 10 percent of medical personnel. In light of the pandemic, this disruption increased by significantly. The issue we are trying to resolve -- drug diversion -- became more apparent with chaos in the hospitals.
Healthcare providers are under pressure; they’re working more hours than ever before, and a byproduct of that is finding ways to alleviate the mental health pressures these workers are feeling. One of those ways is, unfortunately, medicating improperly with drugs intended for patient care.”
Q: What are some key successes or major milestones that ANiGENT has achieved that you can share?
Chuck D’Amato: “Competitively speaking, we are way ahead of the curve than our competitors because of the way we built MAAP Analytics — designed from the clinical ground up.
Our competitors’ models have been modified to retrofit a clinical setting, and it shows. Their results are less than 60 percent accurate. Other methods are very one-dimensional and only look at limited data that doesn’t translate to valuable insights in a real healthcare setting.
ANiGENT’s solution, on the other hand, examines a complex array of factors involved, and even more factors now that we’re in a pandemic.
We take an integrated, four-pronged approach to drug diversion that allows us to solve issues at a 100 percent rate, holistically and accurately. We can detect even the most savvy and sophisticated diverters and pinpoint false information and patterns to identify the highest risk areas and persons responsible for diverting drugs.”
Jun Fabella: “One of the biggest successes for me is that we’ve kept our core team that we put in place in 2019 intact.
Secondly, our perseverance as a team has been incredible. We’ve successfully developed a commercially-viable product that has adapted to the changing healthcare needs in less than a year’s time.”
Q: Please share how your experience with trusted partners (like the Concannon Insurance Agency) is important to the success of your organization.
Jun Fabella: “Concannon has given us flexibility in terms of various insurance coverage options available to us as a small business. They recommended what coverage we needed to protect our personnel, and what to consider from a cybersecurity perspective, for example. We relied on that expertise to share what we may need now vs. later, and what we may not need at all.
Chuck D’Amato: “Looking at our company from an insurance standpoint, we can see what was billed correctly or not, and that translates into more thoroughness for our technology. So we can make sure everything is correct across the board: protecting patients, the institutions with which we work, in keeping costs down and in general, improving medical care.”
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Jun Fabella: “We started ANiGENT without knowing about the pandemic. I’m proud of our team for adapting and improving our technology to get ahead of this issue of drug diversion.”
Chuck D’Amato: “We’ve received compliments that our technology has helped protect healthcare workers. Previously, healthcare workers would be wrongly accused of drug diversion because the current software products were outdated and inaccurate. With MAAP Analytics, we are able to find the diversion needle in the haystack.”
From protecting patient lives to healthcare workers’ jobs, from preserving the reputation of top healthcare institutions to capturing lost revenues, it’s clear that ANiGENT’s unique approach and technology is vital to the success of the healthcare system.
To learn more about this revolutionary company and their technology, please visit: http://anigent.com.
