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Proteus Digital Health

Digital health / ingestible sensorsUSA
New to Unitard
💀 Dead / Bankrupt
Peak $1.5 BillionToday
~-100%
from peak
  1. 🦄
    Became a unicorn
    2016
  2. 📈
    Peak valuation
    $1.5 Billion ’16
  3. 💔
    Became a Unitard
    Jun 2020
  4. 💸
    Last valuation
    Wiped out
Capital raised
$500M
Total raised
$72.2K/day
Raised per day

Total raised averaged per day over approximately 19.0 years from founding to bankruptcy or shutdown. This is not measured cash burn. Methodology

Funding: CNBC (more than $500M) and Raymond James sale testimony (about half a billion dollars); other estimates run from $420M to $509M
Current status
Chapter 11 (filed June 15, 2020, D. Del., Case 20-11580, later renamed PDH Windup); substantially all assets sold to Otsuka America Pharmaceutical for $15M cash plus certain assumed liabilities (closed Aug 20, 2020); liquidating plan confirmed Nov 2020

The rise & fall

9 moments · 2001–2022

The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.

2001
Founded as Proteus Biomedical
Andrew Thompson, George Savage and Mark Zdeblick start the company that becomes Proteus Digital Health; its own court filing dates the founding to 2002.
Fierce Healthcare
Mar 2016
The peak: valued at $1.5B around its Series H$1.5B
Chinese drugmaker Gloria Pharma commits up to $40M to the round. CNBC later reports, citing Forbes, that investors valued Proteus at $1.5B.
CNBC
Nov 2017
FDA approves Abilify MyCite with a Proteus sensor
Otsuka's antipsychotic becomes the first FDA-approved drug with a digital ingestion tracking system.
STAT
Nov 2019
An expected $100M round falls through
People familiar tell CNBC that most of the roughly 300 staff were furloughed for about two weeks, until $5M of emergency funding arrived.
CNBC
Feb 2020
Restructuring officer becomes interim CEO
Lawrence Perkins of SierraConstellation Partners, brought in as chief restructuring officer in November 2019, takes over from co-founder Andrew Thompson.
Fierce Healthcare
Jun 15 ’20
Files Chapter 11 — joins the Unitard Club 💔
Proteus files in Delaware with 93 employees, telling the court that the pandemic froze its efforts to raise money.
Court filing
Aug 20 ’20
Otsuka buys the assets for $15M plus certain liabilities$15M
No rival bids arrive. The court approves the sale over objections from preferred shareholders including Novartis, and it closes the next day.
Fierce Healthcare
Nov 2020
Liquidating plan confirmed
The court confirms the plan without a hearing; secured lenders are repaid in full and unsecured creditors receive a distribution.
Goodwin
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2015–22
Glassdoor reviews praised the technology and colleagues but repeatedly described shifting strategy, office politics and top-heavy management; later reviewers said the product was ahead of its time and hard to sell.
$1.5Bof peak value erased · 19 years

💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.

How it happened

Proteus Digital Health, founded in 2001 as Proteus Biomedical by Andrew Thompson, George Savage and Mark Zdeblick, made ingestible sensors that confirm when a patient has taken a pill. Investors valued the Redwood City, California, company at $1.5B around a 2016 Series H that included Chinese drugmaker Gloria Pharma.

In November 2017 the FDA approved Abilify MyCite, Otsuka's antipsychotic with a Proteus sensor, the first drug with a digital ingestion tracking system. Revenue stayed small. A planned round of about $100M fell through in late 2019, and most staff were briefly furloughed. Proteus filed for Chapter 11 in Delaware on June 15, 2020. No rival bids appeared, and Otsuka bought substantially all of its assets for $15M in cash plus certain liabilities in August 2020.

Source: CNBC (Dec 8, 2019 and June 15, 2020): valued at $1.5B per Forbes, about three years before; CB Insights dates the $1.5B to the March 2016 Series H, in which Gloria Pharma committed up to $40M (BioSpace) and Proteus announced $50M (Apr 15, 2016). Fortune's 2016 unicorn list carried $1.1B. Petition and Doc 8 (Bankr. D. Del. 20-11580, filed June 15, 2020; interim CEO Lawrence Perkins): pre-revenue, liquidity crunch, COVID-19 froze fundraising. Fierce Healthcare, STAT, MedCity, DLA Piper and Goodwin (Aug 2020): Otsuka stalking-horse bid of $15M cash plus certain liabilities, no rival bids, approved Aug 19 and closed Aug 20, 2020. Goodwin (Nov 16, 2020): liquidating plan confirmed. Founded 2001 per Fierce and Fortune (the company's court filing says 2002).

Where they went

  • Andrew Thompson
    co-founder & CEO (led at peak)
    Managing Director / Co-Founder at Spring Ridge Ventures
    LinkedIn ↗
  • George Savage
    co-founder & chief medical officer
    Chief Executive Officer / Co-Founder at Fulcrum Neuroscience
    LinkedIn ↗
  • Mark Zdeblick
    co-founder & chief technology officer
    Advisor / Mentor at Stanford University
    LinkedIn ↗

Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-10-22. See our methodology.

Disclosed investors (10)

Historical funding participation; lists may be incomplete and do not establish current ownership or investor losses.

* Lead in a funding round · Crunchbase ↗ · 2026-10-22 · Methodology · Leaderboard

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