A fast-growing health tech startup has hired a new chief operating officer.
New Albany, Indiana-based RxLightning, which was founded in 2020, has named Jared Klingeisen its COO.
Klingeisen joins the team after working as senior vice president at Medable, a health care platform, which reached a $2.1 billion valuation in his time there. Prior to joining Medable, he worked for Epic, the Electronic Medical Record giant.
Klingeisen told me he’s been fortunate to have now worked for three female-led companies — all in the health care industry. What excites him most about working with RxLightning is its mission.
RxLightning enables physicians to accelerate patient access to their preferred specialty therapies by helping physicians prescribe patients specialty medication without paper forms or fax machines. Essentially, it helps patients get their medicines faster.
“This is a really deeply personal mission to many, many people who work at RxLightning,” Klingeisen told me in an interview. “Many of the people who work here, either personally or family members or people close to them, have been affected by not being able to get a potentially lifesaving medication into their hands as soon as it was needed. Rather than continuing to wonder, ‘What if a family member or friend had that medication and maybe [they wouldn’t haved] passed away?’ We have the ability to directly impact that here.”
Klingeisen said in this and his previous roles, each team has been “laser focused” on using technology to fix manual and paper-based tasks in health care. He said RxLightning is a well-thought-out platform that solves a problem to disrupt the status quo.
As COO, Klingeisen assures the company is moving forward as smoothly as possible, he said. His role includes building the organization while insuring the team is aligned towards its mission as it grows. He said he works directly with clients, the board of directors and the company’s co-founder and CEO, Julia Regan.
“Jared’s proven success as an exceptional leader at disruptive health-tech companies is an invaluable addition to RxLightning,” Regan said in a news release on his hiring. “As chief operating officer, Jared brings next-level experience to drive our operational excellence, accelerate our strategy and grow our platform and network.”
By the end of the year, RxLightning plans to employ about 40 people. That would mean it has doubled its workforce this year, as the company started 2022 with less than 20 on its staff, I previously reported.
Beyond just that workforce growth, it’s planning to add 175 new jobs in New Albany, where it is opening a headquarters early next year.
Klingeisen will be based in Wisconsin, but plans to commute often to New Albany,, he said.
RxLightning’s path for continued expansion is to continue partnerships with organizations broaden its reach both in the U.S. and across the globe that would benefit from a partnership, Klingeisen said. This includes the pharmaceutical space, but also the specialty pharmacy provider space.
As the company grows, Klingeisen said its team will try to raise education and awareness about what the platform is trying to do.
“To grow and achieve what we're hoping to do, we need to really identify and continue to grow our team here with really the best and brightest, both locally and probably throughout the U.S.,” Klingeisen said.
To date, RxLightning has raised about $10 million in venture capital.
