Highlights
Pharmacist Eunice Wu was frustrated that she spent much of her time doing administrative work instead of helping patients, prompting her and a colleague to found Asepha.
Asepha raised $4 million in seed funding to expand its AI-powered platform that automates pharmacy workflows, helping relieve administrative burdens and staffing shortages.
The startup’s tools digitize handwritten prescriptions, answer phone calls and streamline data entry, cutting task times by up to two-thirds.
Watch more: AI Startup Asepha Prescribes Automation to Cure Pharmacy Paperwork Overload
The healthcare industry faces a critical operational crisis that’s undermining both profitability and patient outcomes. With 70% of U.S. pharmacies operating understaffed and pharmacists spending up to 90% of their time on administrative tasks rather than clinical care, the sector is grappling with inefficiencies that directly impact revenue and service delivery.
Eunice Wu, a practicing pharmacist, experienced this bottleneck firsthand. “I was really frustrated because I entered the healthcare industry to help patients, and there wasn’t really much of that happening because we were so bogged down by admin work,” Wu recalled in a conversation with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster.
Her daily workflow required “opening 10 different tabs to access 10 different log-ins for 10 different tools” just to complete routine pharmacy functions, a process that stretched administrative tasks to six minutes or more.
Rather than accept these operational inefficiencies, Wu partnered with software engineer Can Uncu in 2023 to launch Asepha, a health tech startup that has developed a modular agentic artificial intelligence (AI) platform specifically designed to automate manual pharmacy operations.
“Everyone on our team is either a pharmacist or someone who has worked in the healthcare pharmacy industry who can also code,” Wu said. The industry-specific knowledge connects real operational pain points with relevant solutions, rather than the promise of theoretical efficiencies, she emphasized.
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Asepha’s platform deploys three specialized AI agents that address the most time-consuming pharmacy workflows.
The optical character recognition agent digitizes and interprets handwritten prescriptions with 96% accuracy, eliminating manual transcription errors and processing delays. A call-handling agent automates up to 70% of inbound pharmacy phone calls, reducing staff workload while maintaining service quality. The browser navigation agent accelerates web-based workflows that previously consumed significant staff hours.
The platform’s integration capabilities are designed for large retail chains as well as the independent pharmacy. And rather than requiring system overhauls, Asepha integrates directly into existing pharmacy software systems, ensuring minimal disruption during implementation.
“Everything about Asepha is modular,” Wu said, “because no pharmacist’s workflow is completely the same across different states, across different countries.”
Wu said early deployment results demonstrate significant operational improvements. Asepha reduced a standard six-minute administrative process to two minutes, a 67% efficiency gain. Prescription turnaround times that previously stretched beyond 48 hours were compressed to 24 hours, directly improving customer satisfaction and throughput capacity.
Wu also said that in randomized trials, pharmacists preferred Asepha’s AI responses to those of human pharmacists 71% of the time, indicating superior accuracy and consistency in automated processes. Wu identified three key ROI metrics that drive client adoption: time saved per task, faster service delivery for patients, and expanded capacity for higher-value clinical services.
Wu said Asepha’s competitive moat encompasses both technology and distribution capabilities. “The distribution element is also a huge moat,” she noted. “The ability to connect with enterprises and provide them with what they need is very unique.”
The market has responded with significant validation. Asepha, which recently closed a $4 million seed round led by Glasswing Ventures and Core Innovation Capital, with participation from Ripple Ventures, Panache, RedBud, MGV, and Front Row Ventures. The startup has already secured several Fortune 50 enterprise customers and is operational across the U.S., Canada and Australia.
The funding will support engineering team expansion, U.S. market growth through a New York City office, and international expansion.
Asepha’s infrastructure is built to handle the complex regulatory and data privacy requirements that define healthcare operations. The platform’s modular architecture allows customization for different regulatory environments while maintaining compliance standards across jurisdictions.
This flexibility is particularly relevant as the industry evolves. “As of two years ago, pharmacists can now actually prescribe,” Wu said. “But you can imagine if you already have an eight-hour day that’s full of work, you can’t really add more tasks without alleviating the old tasks.” By automating administrative burdens, Asepha enables pharmacies to capitalize on expanded clinical service opportunities that drive higher margins.
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