FitOrbit: Website & iPhone App

FitOrbit has launched, aiming to connect health-minded folks with personal trainers for one-on-one fitness and meal plans. FitOrbit has both a website and an iPhone application.

The newly formed company is backed by angel investor Ron Conway, John Brown (President of Time Inc’s Health franchise), Dr. Jeffrey Weisz (Medical Director of Southern California Permanente Medical Group), Kathy Kaehler ("trainer to the stars") and Jake Steinfeld (Founder, Body by Jake, Exercise TV and Chairman of the California Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports). Private investment firm Polar Capital Group has also invested.

The first thing you do at FitOrbit is take a short quiz to determine which real life personal trainer you would want to connect with based on your profile and current lifestyle. You can also choose to pick your own trainer.



Plans start at $9.99 per week for six months, though you can choose to do a one week test run for $29.99. Prices might sound a bit high, but when compared with the prices of personal trainers at gyms, these prices seem compelling.

Each week comes with a daily workout plan and accompanying instructional videos, a personalized daily meal plan with nutritional information, reminders, tracking tools, and feedback from your very own trainer. And your trainer will also be available to you and able to edit your plan on the fly (e.g., if you’re on vacation), and give you one-on-one attention via on-website messaging.

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Certify & Health Info Exchange

San Jose, CA-based Certify Data Systems is the developer of technology that allows hospitals and doctors' offices to exchange health information.

This week they announced that they raised an undisclosed amount in its second round of funding, led by Ziegler HealthVest Partners. Ziegler also took part in the company's first round last August.

Certify's information exchange gateway and appliance are designed to allow disparate systems to exchange clinical data, such as lab reports, discharge summaries and other patient data [details here].

The recent passage of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 dedicates $19.2 billion to the “meaningful use” of health information technology, while additional provisions in the Act provide nearly $10 billion more for areas such as telehealth, broadband adoption and community health-- no doubt Certify is aiming for some of these funds.

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RxVantage

Providence, RI-based startup RxVantage attracted a $500K investment from Rhode Island’s venture capital arm, the Slater Technology Fund.

RxVantage allows medical offices to efficiently coordinate educational interactions with the highly-trained individuals (e.g., Pharma Reps) who represent the products and services that improve and extend their patients' lives. Physician Offices can implement RxVantage very quickly and thereafter invite their reps to access their account online to learn everything they need to know about the office and doctors, and schedule educational opportunities.




The company is now seeking additional investors to gain another round of between $6 million and $8 million.

The RxVantage system requires that all appointments are confirmed in advance by reps aiming to sell to doctors, and in the event an appointment is canceled for any reason, the appointment is made available to all other reps in the area. Notionally an "OpenTable" for sales reps.

The idea is to save pharmas the cost of lost productivity, and save doctors precious time otherwise lost to cancellations and no-shows.

The application has been tested in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and achieved a 90% acceptance rating among the early adopters, the company said.

RxVantage is similar to what was Boston-based PreferredTime Inc. The company went out of business about a year ago.

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