The Other Side of the Prescription: How Prescriby Health Landed in Maine
Maine Startups Insider profiled Prescriby Health's journey from Reykjavik to South Portland — and why co-founder Dr. Kjartan Thorsson chose Maine for the company's first U.S. clinic.
Prescriby Health was featured in Maine Startups Insider in a story tracing how an Iceland-based health-tech startup came to open its first U.S. clinic in South Portland. The piece follows co-founder Dr. Kjartan Thorsson from his orthopedic surgery residency — where routinely discharging patients with opioid prescriptions left him asking whether there was a better way — to building a physician-led model for safely tapering and deprescribing medications.
For Portland cardiologist Dr. Jennifer Monti, who helped shape Prescriby's Maine presence, the gap comes down to a comment she kept hearing from patients: “No one ever asked me if I wanted to come off them.” The article describes how treatment plans often continue simply because they are already in motion — a prescription starts, refills follow, a new provider inherits the chart, and the medication stays. Prescriby was built to interrupt that pattern.
The story also charts Prescriby's Maine roots: a win at a Nordic health-tech hackathon co-sponsored by the Maine International Trade Center, an introduction to former State Senator Lynn Bromley, and connections through the Roux Institute that made Maine the leading candidate for the company's first U.S. clinic. Prescriby is now an approved participating provider in Maine with Medicare, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, and UnitedHealthcare.
Since launching in Iceland in late 2024, Prescriby says it has helped more than 900 patients reduce or discontinue prescription medications, with an 88.2% success rate through its physician-led tapering model.
Read the full story, “The Other Side of the Prescription: How Prescriby Health Landed in Maine,” in Maine Startups Insider.