A HealthTech Provider Raises $50 Million with a Drug Delivery Platform

Description

A software provider for healthcare turned to Altoros to develop a web platform for doctors and a mobile app for patients that would connect to smart inhaler devices.

Brief results of the collaboration:

• The customer developed a web platform for the doctors to assign and track smart inhalers, as well as a mobile app for patients to monitor and optimize inhaler usage, get reminders, etc. With the delivered prototype of the web system, the company was able to test feature feasibility and showcase the solution to investors, raising $50 million.
• By following the Agile methodology, the provider was able to release new features every 2–3 weeks.
• Thanks to the elaborated architecture, the company laid foundation for high availability and scalability, as well as ensured advanced security across the web, mobile, and inhaler systems.
• Using cross-platform mobile tools, the startup significantly cut expenses, avoiding the necessity to create separate iOS and Android apps and support two systems.

The customer

Based in Israel, the customer is a software provider to the healthcare industry. The company’s main product is a smart inhaler that enables pulmonary delivery of therapeutic molecules and phytosubstances to patients suffering from intense pain, nervous system disorders, sleep, anxiety, and leukemia.

The need

Each smart inhaler has a preloaded cartridge with a medical substance. The device was developed to administer low doses, minimizing various side effects up to 90%. Initial trials were conducted at an Israeli hospital, where doctors distributed devices among patients on an individual basis. This procedure involved making prescriptions, keeping record of patients and assigned inhalers, monitoring inhaler regimens, etc.

Relying on Altoros, the startup wanted to build a web platform for doctors to track patients and devices, as well as a mobile app for patients to monitor and optimize inhaler usage, get reminders, etc. Targeting at a global market, the customer strove for scalability and high availability. With a minimum viable product (MVP), the company planned to raise additional investment for future development.

The challenges

Under the project, the team at Altoros had to address the following issues:

• A mobile app was to gather sensitive information—personal data, drug doses, etc.—from inhalers via Bluetooth and send it to the web platform. However, Bluetooth connections are highly prone to cyber attacks. Given the sensitivity of data, security was a top priority for both the web and mobile systems.
• It was important to ensure uninterrupted data transfer between the mobile app and the web platform, even with unreliable Internet.
• While different mobile devices could use different Bluetooth protocols, it was crucial to prevent any contradictions when pairing with the inhaler.

The solution

Stage 1. After analyzing the customer needs, the team at Altoros worked out an architecture of the web system based on Amazon Web Services, because the cloud platform had all the required tooling to enable scalability, high availability, and security. Using Arduino, our developers then built a working prototype of the web platform to validate feature feasibility. The prototype also helped the customer’s in-house team to identify some discrepancies in the inhaler’s workflows and improve them. By following Agile best practices, our engineers managed to deliver new features every 2–3 weeks. Using Apache Cordova and Ionic, developers at Altoros delivered a cross-platform mobile app for patients.

Stage 2. To protect the web system from DoS attacks, our team utilized AWS Shield. With Shamir's Secret Sharing, developers at Altoros implemented distributed encryption over the data shared between the web, mobile, and inhaler systems. On top of that, our engineers enabled two-factor authentication and role-based access control.

Stage 3. With Elastic Load Balancing, the team at Altoros ensured autoscaling of computing resources.

Stage 4. To deliver reliable data synchronization between the web platform and mobile app, our developers utilized Apache CouchDB.

Stage 5. By creating a custom plug-in, engineers at Altoros ensured the compatibility across different Bluetooth protocols connecting to the inhaler device.

Stage 6. With the ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana), our team enabled infrastructure monitoring and data visualization.

Stage 7. Our quality assurance engineers conducted security testing to identify vulnerabilities and prevent issues in the future. By carrying out integration testing, experts at Altoros achieved seamless product interaction with third-party components. Through acceptance testing, our team verified that the system was ready for release.

The outcome

Partnering with Altoros, the customer developed a web platform for the doctors to assign and track smart inhalers, as well as a mobile app for patients to monitor and optimize inhaler usage, get reminders, etc. With the delivered prototype of the web system, the company was able to test feature feasibility and present the solution to investors, raising $50 million. Thanks to the chosen architecture, the organization laid foundation for high availability and scalability, as well as ensured advanced security across the web, mobile, and inhaler systems. By following Agile best practices, the company managed to implement new features every 2–3 weeks. Cross-platform mobile development helped the customer to significantly reduce expenses, avoiding the necessity to build separate Android and iOS apps, as well as support two different systems.