Sana Mobile

What Sana Mobile does

Sana Mobile is an open-source mobile health platform developed at MIT's Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES), focused on improving healthcare delivery in remote and resource-limited settings. The core SANA Platform is an end-to-end system for the collection, transmission, storage, and analysis of medical data, enabling remote healthcare workers to send photos, x-rays, audio, and video files to central servers and remote specialists for real-time decision support. Key products include Moca (Mobile Care) for remote diagnosis and screening, S2DIA for type 2 diabetes risk assessment, a clinical Protocol Builder developed with the University of Waterloo, and Sana AudioPulse developed with Brazilian partner UFRN. The platform integrates with OpenMRS, an open-source electronic medical records system used in over 60 countries.

Sana operates as an academic research initiative rather than a commercial entity, co-directed by MIT and Harvard Medical School faculty Leo Anthony Celi and Kenneth Paik. The organization does not generate commercial product revenue; it is funded through academic grants, research partnerships, and institutional collaborations, and distributes its software freely via GitHub. Its go-to-market is event-driven rather than sales-driven, relying on international hackathons (conducted in 15+ countries including the Philippines, Brazil, Colombia, India, Uganda, and Taiwan), educational programs (the HST.936 course and the HST.936x edX MOOC with 4,000+ learners), and an MIT Press textbook on global health informatics. Named collaborators and project partners include UNFPA, J-PAL, Harvard Medical School's Program in Global Surgery and Social Change, Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, the University of Waterloo, Universidad del Cauca, and Taipei Medical University, reflecting a globally distributed research and capacity-building mission rather than a traditional enterprise customer base.

Name

Sana Mobile

Legal name

MIT Sana

Website

https://sana.mit.edu

Company type

Private

Founded year

2009

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

5,001–10,000 employees

Short description

Sana Mobile is an MIT-developed open-source mobile health platform that enables remote healthcare workers to transmit medical data to specialists for telemedicine in resource-limited settings, supported by academic research, international hackathons, and educational programs.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Mobile Health (mHealth) Software

NAICS

Services for the Elderly and Persons with Disabilities (62412)

SIC

Services-Health Services (8000)

akta.pro primary industry

Virtual Specialty Care Platforms (tele-stroke, tele-ICU, tele-derm, tele-cardiology) (HLALABAD)

akta.pro secondary industry

Virtual Visit & Video Conferencing APIs/SDKs (HIPAA-compliant) (HLALAKAA)

Keywords

• Mobile health platform
• Open source mHealth
• Telemedicine software
• Global health informatics
• Clinical decision support

Headquarters

HQ city

Cambridge

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Research Grants and Academic Funding: Sana operates as an MIT research initiative funded through academic grants, research partnerships, and institutional collaborations rather than commercial product revenue.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Sana Mobile is an MIT-developed open-source mobile health platform that provides an end-to-end system for the collection, transmission, storage, and analysis of medical data via cell phones, connecting remote healthcare workers to physicians and remote specialists for real-time clinical decision support. The platform integrates with the OpenMRS electronic medical records system and is offered free of charge to healthcare providers, NGOs, and academic institutions operating in resource-limited settings worldwide.

Product overview

Sana Mobile is an MIT-based global health informatics initiative centered on the SANA Platform, which provides an extensive set of healthcare tools for the collection, transmission, storage, and analysis of medical data. The core offering includes Moca (Mobile Care) for remote diagnosis and screening, and S2DIA for diabetes diagnostics. These products connect remote healthcare workers to physicians through an end-to-end system that integrates with OpenMRS. The organization also offers educational programs including the HST.936 curriculum and an edX MOOC on health information systems, along with hosting hackathons and datathons for capacity building in global health innovation.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Moca (Mobile Care): A cell phone-facilitated clinical information system to improve diagnostic, screening and therapeutic capabilities in remote resource-poor settings. Allows transmission of medical files (photos, x-rays, audio, video) to a central server and remote specialists.
• S2DIA
• Sana AudioPulse

Products and services

• Sana Mobile Platform An extensive set of healthcare tools for the collection, transmission, storage, and analysis of medical data. When fully installed and configured, the tools provide an end-to-end system connecting remote healthcare workers to physicians and managing medical data, integrating with OpenMRS for longitudinal electronic medical records.
• Moca (Mobile Care for Remote Diagnosis) A cell phone-facilitated clinical information system that improves diagnostic, screening, and therapeutic capabilities in remote resource-poor settings. The software allows transmission of medical files (photos, x-rays, audio, video) through a cell phone to a central server for archiving and incorporation into an electronic medical record, and to a remote specialist for real-time decision support.
• S2DIA Diabetes Diagnostic System A diagnostic system for Diabetes mellitus built on the SANA platform, designed as a first step toward identifying risks for type 2 Diabetes in remote and poor areas. Evaluated in resource-limited settings in Brazil.
• Sana AudioPulse A mobile health technology project developed in collaboration with UFRN (Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte) in Brazil.
• Protocol Builder Clinical protocol development and deployment tools for healthcare workers in remote settings, built through the University of Waterloo partnership (Waterloo PB2 and Protocol Builder Team 3 projects).
• HST.936x: Designing Health Information Systems (edX MOOC) A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on edX covering the design of health information systems, targeting graduate students, researchers, and clinicians studying global health informatics.

Quantifiable outcome

• Over 4,000 learners enrolled in edX course
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

AI capability7 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

15 partnerships are on record, tiered core and secondary.

• UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMultiple ongoing projects including Hack4Youth Phase II and III (adolescent sexual and reproductive health), GetIn (young mother ante-natal care in Uganda), and SafePal (gender-based violence reporting). Sylvia Wong and Charles Otine serve as UNFPA leads on Sana projects.
• University of WaterloocoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerWaterloo Sana Protocol Builder projects including PB2 and Protocol Builder Team 3. Derek Rayside from University of Waterloo leads technical development of protocol builder tools.
• Universidad del CaucacoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerColombia-based partnership led by Dr. Diego Lopez for health informatics projects including hackathons and Hacking Hackathons event.
• Taipei Medical UniversitycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerTaiwan partnership led by Dr. Jack Li (Yu-Chuan Li) for TMU Hackathon on Health IoT (HiOT) and other health informatics initiatives.
• Harvard Medical School - Program in Global Surgery and Social ChangecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborative research on surgical assessment tools and global surgery initiatives including projects in Uganda and Haiti.
• MIT Hacking MedicinecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership for hackathon methodology and health innovation events including Hacking Hackathons with MIT Teaching Systems Lab.
• Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerHaryana Child Vaccination Registry and Incentive Program in India led by Prof. Esther Duflo with researchers John Floretta, Anna Schrimpf, Niki Edmonds, and Francine Loza.
• Hospital Israelita Albert EinsteincoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerBrazil partnership for MIT-HIAE Datathon in healthcare collaborative research with Lucas Bulgarelli as lead.
• OpenMRScoreTechnology or IntegrationOpen source medical records system integration. SANA platform is integrated with OpenMRS, which is used in over 60 countries worldwide.
• Aristotle University of ThessalonikisecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerGreece partnership for mHealth Greece hackathon with Andreas Symeonidis as lead.
• Universidad Politécnica de MadridcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSpain partnership through Life Supporting Technologies (LifeSTech) research group for 2017 Madrid Health Datathon with D. Miguel Ángel Armengol de la Hoz and Felipe Torres Fábregas.
• Khon Kaen UniversitysecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerThailand partnership for mHealth Bootcamp & Hackathon 2017 with local leads Dickson Liu, Katherine Morley, Mataroria Lyndon, and Michael Morley.
• Tecnológico de MonterreysecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerMexico partnership for Mobile Health Hackathons in 2016 and 2017 with Juana Julieta Noguez Monroy and David Alejandro Escárcega Centeno.
• Mbarara University of Science and Technology (Uganda)secondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerUganda partnership for PGSSC Surgical Assessment Tool with leads Rogers Mwavu, Fred Kaggwa, and Richard Kimera.
• UFRN (Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte)secondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerBrazil partnership for Sana AudioPulse project led by Prof. Ana Guerreiro.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Amwell: Amwell is a broad telehealth platform serving health systems and insurers; comparable as a provider-integrated virtual care platform, though operating in commercial US-centric markets versus Sana's resource-limited focus.
• Teladoc Health: Teladoc is a broad incumbent in virtual care delivery, providing telehealth at scale across many specialties and geographies; comparable as a virtual care platform operator, though focused on commercial/insured markets rather than resource-limited settings.

Direct peers

• OpenMRS: OpenMRS is the open-source electronic medical records system that Sana directly integrates with. It is a peer in the global digital health open-source ecosystem and the primary downstream system for Sana's data flows.
• iHRIS (IntraHealth): iHRIS is an open-source health workforce information system deployed across developing countries; comparable as a member of the same open-source global health informatics ecosystem with overlapping ministry-of-health and NGO customers.
• Medic (formerly Medic Mobile): Medic builds an open-source mobile health platform used by community health workers globally; comparable in open-source distribution, integration with national health systems, and emphasis on resource-limited deployments.
• Bahmni: Bahmni is an open-source hospital information system built on OpenMRS, used in low-resource settings; directly comparable in technical stack, OpenMRS dependency, and target deployments.
• Dimagi (CommCare): Dimagi's CommCare is an open-source mobile platform for frontline health workers in low-resource settings — directly comparable to Sana's Moca product in target users (community health workers), deployment model (open-source mobile data collection), and global health focus.
• DHIS2 (HISP): DHIS2 is the most widely deployed open-source health information system globally; comparable as a health informatics platform serving ministries of health and NGOs in developing countries with similar open-source and academic-backed governance.

Emerging players

• TytoCare: TytoCare builds remote examination hardware/software for telehealth visits; comparable as a technology-enabled remote diagnostic platform targeting the same use case (specialist decision support from remote settings), though with a hardware-centric commercial model.
• VSee: VSee provides telehealth video, messaging, and remote examination tools, with deployments in humanitarian and low-resource contexts (including NASA, Mercy Ships); comparable as a low-bandwidth telehealth platform for resource-limited settings.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/sanamobile
• Facebookfacebook.com/mitsanamobile
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/sana-mit-edu

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Sana Mobile