Latent has expanded its enterprise pharmacy intelligence platform to 60 major U.S. health systems serving approximately 70 million patients, while introducing a new suite of autonomous clinical agents designed to accelerate access to high-demand and complex medications.
New health system customers include Cleveland Clinic, AdventHealth, Cincinnati Children’s, Keck Medicine of USC, UNC Health, UnityPoint Health and WVU Medicine.
Latent’s platform is designed to help hospital pharmacy teams manage the administrative and clinical workflows required to get medications to patients, particularly as specialty drugs become more complex and coverage requirements increase.
The company’s new autonomous clinical agents are focused on accelerating access to therapies including GLP-1 drugs and specialty treatments across immunology, rheumatology and cardiology.
The agents analyze unstructured information in patient charts along with claims data, payer policies and drug labels. They can then reason across that information and act within health system workflows under the oversight of clinical pharmacy teams.
Latent is on pace to process more than 5.8 million patient medication cases over the next 12 months. Those cases span workflows including prior authorizations, compliance readiness reviews and pharmacy work queues.
The expansion comes as pharmaceutical innovation is increasing the number and complexity of treatments reaching the market.
The global specialty drug market was approximately $225 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $2.3 trillion by 2034, according to market research cited by Latent. Specialty medications now account for approximately 50% of U.S. pharmacy drug spending.
Latent believes the growing use of AI in drug discovery and development could further accelerate the introduction of complex medicines, increasing pressure on health systems to modernize the administrative infrastructure supporting patient access.
Medication access can involve navigating changing insurer requirements, determining whether patients meet eligibility criteria, gathering information from medical records and submitting prior authorization documentation.
Latent is applying AI agents to automate more of that work while keeping the processes within governed health system environments.
One example came after Medicare launched the GLP-1 Bridge Program on July 1, 2026, making approximately 4 million Medicare members eligible overnight.
Within 10 days, Latent said it deployed agents capable of autonomously evaluating patient eligibility for GLP-1 therapies and gathering the information needed to submit prior authorizations. The deployment was designed to help hospital pharmacy teams respond to the sudden increase in demand while reducing delays in medication access.
Latent’s broader platform uses a clinical agentic engine across multiple stages of the pharmacy journey.
The technology can help health systems identify patients who qualify for care, improve medication access, capture eligible prescriptions and support patients during treatment.
The company was founded by Sriram “Sri” Somasundaram and Rishabh Jain and has raised $80 million from investors including Transformation Capital, Spark Capital, McKesson Ventures, Conviction, General Catalyst and Y Combinator.
As its health system footprint grows, Latent is positioning its autonomous agents as additional operational capacity for pharmacy organizations facing growing specialty medication volumes without equivalent increases in staffing.
KEY QUOTES:
“Advancements in medicine are outpacing the infrastructure built to get new therapies to patients,” said Sri Somasundaram, Co-Founder of Latent. “A treatment can exist, work, and still never reach the person who needs it because access is mired by complex coverage rules. We’re giving health systems the ability to extend the capacity of their pharmacy teams and get patients into the right treatment, without an unnecessary wait.”
Sri Somasundaram, Co-Founder of Latent
“The rapid growth of specialty and high-cost therapies is creating unprecedented and unrelenting pressure on medication access teams across the country,” said Robert Granko, Pharm.D., MBA, System Vice President, Pharmacy Business Operations for UNC Health. “At UNC Health, we have seen how intelligent automation can help our pharmacy teams manage growing demand, improve visibility across workflows, and accelerate access to therapy. Most importantly, it allows us to focus more of our effort where it matters most, helping patients start treatment sooner and supporting providers through an increasingly complex access landscape.”
Robert Granko, Pharm.D., MBA, System Vice President, Pharmacy Business Operations for UNC Health
“At Keck Medicine of USC, we treat some of the most complicated and sickest patients in the nation,” explained Aman Mahajan, Associate Senior Vice President, USC Health Innovation. “The complex therapies and specialty medications these patients need require innovative solutions within our specialty pharmacies so we can help our patients access the right medications sooner.”
Aman Mahajan, Associate Senior Vice President, USC Health Innovation
“At WVU Medicine, patient care and safety are our top priorities,” said Charles Barkey, Vice President, Clinical Applications at WVU Medicine. “The number of specialty medications coming to market today is growing faster than health systems can sustain. Technology that safely automates administrative work required to navigate increasingly complex therapies allows our pharmacists to focus their expertise on helping patients access the right treatment sooner.”
Charles Barkey, Vice President, Clinical Applications at WVU Medicine
