(Matt Hebbard, left, and Jonathan Yantis. Photo by Greenville Headshots)

Jonathan Yantis and Matt Hebbard never set out to start a company. Initially, their goal was to solve a problem at the Medical University of South Carolina, where Yantis worked as a technologist and Hebbard as a pharmacist. Could they find a way to improve how MUSC managed what it spent on drugs for patients, making the process more efficient and less expensive for the hospital at the same time?

As part of a groundbreaking MUSC innovation team, Yantis and Hebbard did just that. And then they realized they’d developed software that could be used at lots of hospitals — so in 2019, QuicksortRx was born.

“Matt and I just really wanted to solve a problem for the hospital,” said Yantis, co-founder and CEO at QuicksortRx. “But it started having a huge impact at MUSC — essentially within a couple of months of going live with the solution, it was saving more money than my salary every week. We figured that was probably the good basis for a business, and that other hospitals could use the same solution. So that’s really what sort of kicked the whole thing off.”

Today, QuicksortRx has 15 employees, a downtown Charleston headquarters, and manages over $12.5 billion in annual drug expenditures for a roster of more than 35 hospital clients. In January, the company announced that the platform had exceeded over $100 million in medication cost savings for its clients. It is also No. 2 on the list of South Carolina’s 50 Fastest Growing Companies by Integrated Media Publishing.

Figuring out the details

Used primarily by hospital supply chain teams — the people responsible for purchasing hundreds of millions of dollars in medications used by patients each year — QuicksortRx allows clients to quickly compare drug prices and availability across a variety of different sources. The same process “used to take hours and hours of spreadsheet work and complicated math problems,” said Yantis. “And now they can just log into this website and see exactly where they're at and everything that's going on.”

It may sound simple, but it was pioneering at the time. Drug costs were hidden behind layers of rebates and complex pricing structures, and QuicksortRx brought clarity, speed, and transparency to the process. Yantis and Hebbard received financial support from MUSC’s Zucker Institute for Innovation and Commercialization, and essentially remained on the MUSC payroll while fine-tuning the platform and mapping out the business to come.

“I was basically paid to continue supporting this project while I was figuring out how to start a business,” Yantis said. “And MUSC was OK with that, so it gave us some time and flexibility. And we didn't need a ton of capital to get going, because it was mostly driven by time and effort. That was a very challenging but rewarding year. Probably the hardest thing we ever did was turn this into a company. Matt and I had no experience in business. We had no business background, and didn't really know what we were doing. We just knew we wanted to serve these institutions well and run an honest, forthright business. And we just sort of figured out the details.”

According to MUSC, the hospital system still owns the intellectual property behind QuicksortRx, with Yantis and Hebbard controlling it through a licensing agreement. And MUSC “remains our largest outside shareholder,” Yantis said, “and they’re very happy with our performance.”

Overcoming disbelief

How groundbreaking was QuicksortRx at the time it was introduced? So much so that when Yantis and Hebbard first began trying to sell it to other hospitals, those potential clients thought it was too good to be true.

“A lot of hospitals weren't quite aware of the level of opportunity,” Yantis recalled. “A lot of these hospitals would stumble upon different efficiencies and things like that, and maybe think they're on top of everything. So, at first, people just didn't believe the results were possible. That was a little difficult, but once we started proving repeated success at a number of health systems, it's became a lot easier. But those first few customers, they weren't quite sure that this could really work. And so probably overcoming that disbelief was probably the hardest thing for us.”

There’s no more disbelief now. Yantis said QuicksortRx is working on a second product that will deal with reimbursement, streamlining remittances, and insurance payments so hospitals know exactly where they stand from a profit-and-loss standpoint. And the company continues to expand its current drug spend software, which recently surpassed $145 million in client medication cost savings. 

“I knew that if we could get out there, and get it proven, and get enough success behind us, the solution just works,” Yantis said. “So, I'm both surprised and not surprised. It's been an internal challenge more than anything else — I thought the market or the competition would be more difficult. But it's really just been about Matt and I figuring how to hire people, and hiring the right people to be able to deliver a solution like this at scale.”