Drug tech company ZappRx nabs $25 million funding round

Health care startup ZappRx has raised $25 million in a new round of funding led by the health care arm of Qiming Venture Partners. Other big names in ZappRx's round were GV, the venture capital hub of Google and Alphabet, and SR One. The company has now raised $41 million and will use the money to scale nationally.

What ZappRx does: It gets specialty drugs to patients faster by cutting administrative waste. ZappRx CEO Zoe Barry started the company in 2012 after her brother, who has epilepsy, had to wait more than nine months to get the medication he needed. It usually takes 19 minutes for providers to fill out enrollment and prior authorization forms for many specialty drugs, but Barry says her company's technology gets that down to just under two minutes.

Context: Specialty medicines, or those that treat complex and chronic conditions, are a primary cause behind the country's rising prescription drug spending. ZappRx is designed to get patients the treatment they need more quickly, but it doesn't address drug pricing itself.