09/04/2026
The startup is Doctronic. New York-based. Founded by Dr. Adam Oskowitz and Matt Pavelle. They just closed a $40M Series B led by Abstract and Lightspeed. Total funding above $65M. Over 300,000 unique weekly visitors.
The pilot launched quietly in December 2025 under Utah’s AI regulatory sandbox, a legal framework the state legislature created in 2024 that allows specific laws to be temporarily waived while regulators monitor for harm. The Department of Commerce oversees it, not the Department of Health. That distinction matters.
The 190 medications include: blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, birth control, SSRIs, asthma, COPD, anxiety, migraine, muscle relaxants, and erectile dysfunction. Full formulary is public on Doctronic’s site.
What is excluded: all painkillers, all ADHD medication, all controlled substances, all injectables, and anything requiring regular lab monitoring. The AI cannot start new prescriptions or modify existing ones. Refills only.
The 250-patient threshold. Before the AI operates independently in any drug class, human physicians must review its first 250 decisions in that class. After that, it prescribes autonomously. Four months in, that threshold has likely been crossed for several drug categories.
States watching: Doctronic is in active talks with Texas, Arizona, and Missouri. Their co-founder has publicly said he expects a dozen states to approve something similar in 2026.
The federal angle: H.R.238, the Healthy Technology Act of 2025, introduced by Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ), would classify AI as a “practitioner licensed by law” eligible to prescribe any FDA-approved drug, pending state authorization. It is sitting in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Utah did not wait for it to pass. They moved first.
The cost of inaction: 125,000 deaths per year in the US from medication noncompliance (PMC, Duke Health, multiple peer-reviewed sources). Nearly 200,000 in the EU (European Commission, OECD). Globally, the WHO estimates half of all chronic patients do not take their medication as prescribed.