Sirum

 

The Diagnosis: Prescription costs are a barrier to health

Every year, $5 billion of unused, unexpired medicine goes to waste in the U.S. While truckloads of unused medication head for incineration, 1 in 4 working-age Americans lack the prescription medications they need to be healthy, simply because they can’t afford them.

The Cure: SIRUM harnesses technology to close the gap in access

Incubated at Stanford University by professionals from the Clinton Foundation, McKinsey, and Stanford Biology, SIRUM recognized that technology could be used to cheaply and easily redistribute surplus prescription medicine to the people who could least afford to buy it. SIRUM developed a peer-to-peer online platform to automatically match surplus medicine from places like nursing homes and pharmacies with the needs of community clinics.

Once donor and recipient organizations easily upload their medicine surplus or needs, our platform makes a match then coordinates donation logistics including itemized drug manifests, tracking and shipping.

The Outcome: SIRUM improves health, reduces costs and prevents harmful waste

By leveraging earned income, including membership fees from recipient community clinics, SIRUM is building the largest financially sustainable medicine redistribution program in the nation. SIRUM has facilitated the redistribution of over $1.6 million units of medicine from over 150 donor organizations, worth nearly $4 million, supplying medicine for thousands of prescriptions in California.

Redistributing surplus medicine: 1) increases access to prescription medicine for uninsured patients; 2) reduces drug acquisition costs for safety-net health systems; and 3) pioneers environmentally sustainable healthcare practices that reduce system waste.