Bristol-based specialist software firm Invatech Health has received another financial shot in the arm as it looks to revolutionise the pharmacy sector with its pioneering technology.
The firm has been awarded £900,000 award from the government-backed Innovate UK agency under a competitive programme to support game-changing tech innovations in small and medium-sized firms. 
The latest round of funding takes the total received by Invatech to £2.2m and marks the start of a new growth phase for its cloud-based Titan Patient Medication Record (PMR).
Invatech was given an initial loan in February 2018 to develop Titan and has since received further grant funding during the coronavirus pandemic to support remote working for independent pharmacists.
The latest sum will support rapid development of new features for Titan, which is the company’s leading platform.
Titan speeds up the workflow in pharmacies to benefit patients and the practice itself and Invatech Health CEO Tariq Muhammad believes the pandemic has thrown the shortcomings of old technology into sharp focus across the pharmacy sector, affecting large online businesses and small independents alike.
“With 5,000 independent and small group pharmacists in England and Wales, alongside the larger corporates, the commercial potential for Titan is massive,” said Tariq, pictured.
“We’re fundamentally different to all other PMRs and are offering a new way of life for pharmacists and a new way of doing things.”
Since becoming accredited by NHS in late 2019 – the first pharmacy PMR to do so for 15 years – Titan has already taken 2% market share, processing more than 1.5m prescriptions a month across customer sites in England and Wales.
The entirely new, innovative, cloud-based solution digitises the end-to-end workflow within pharmacies, makes medicine dispensing safer using barcode technology, helps control business activities and improves the experience for patients and practice owners alike.
Crucially, it aims to free up pharmacists’ time, enabling them to focus on newly-commissioned patient services designed to relieve the burden from under-pressure GPs and the wider NHS.
The disruptive technology has also become the platform of choice for some of the UK’s largest online pharmacies, which have leveraged Titan’s highly scalable AWS (Amazon Web Services) cloud infrastructure to process mass volumes and, in some cases, more than 60,000 prescriptions a day.
Mr Muhammad added: “We’re delighted with the progress that Titan has made, commercially and operationally, over the past two years. We have taken an idea and built something which is helping independent pharmacy businesses and large scale operators alike.
“The pandemic has put pharmacies are under significant pressure and there is a need for technology that can help them cope with greater volume of work, as well as releasing pharmacists’ time to spend on front line healthcare.
“This latest award from Innovate UK, for which we are extremely grateful, will enable us to develop features that have never been seen before in our sector opening up new opportunities for pharmacists.
“Titan is the ‘how’ to the problem that everyone in our sector recognises. It can help to deliver the vision that everyone wants, while bringing benefits across the NHS and the health sector.
“Releasing pharmacists time is fundamental if we want them to, for example, help deliver the national vaccination programme.
“This crisis has highlighted the incapacity of legacy systems to scale up and adapt to dynamic situations, in many business sectors.”
With the additional support from Innovate UK, Invatech plans to develop a wide range of new game-changing apps, delivered as extensions on the Titan platform.
These will help address the new and immediate challenges that pharmacies are facing as a result of Covid-19 and provide innovative solutions to support their businesses and their patients in the long term.
Innovate UK deputy director, lending & investor partnerships Nigel Walker said: “As a part of UKRI, Innovate UK provided innovation loans in a pilot programme to businesses to stimulate innovation where there is a clear route to commercial success, and has also supported businesses with continuity of their innovation despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Innovate UK is pleased to support Invatech Health in its important and highly innovative development of Titan PMR for the pharmacy sector.
“The business has met all the objectives established during the first phase of the loan arrangement and we are delighted to provide further funding to support the company’s ongoing innovations.”
