Doximity Acquires AI-Powered Clinical Reference Startup Pathway to Enhance Point-of-Care Decision Tools for Physicians
Doximity the largest digital platform serving U.S. medical professionals, has announced the acquisition of Pathway Medical Inc., a Montreal-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup focused on evidence-based clinical reference solutions. The move signals Doximity’s strategic commitment to strengthening its clinical tools by integrating cutting-edge AI technology into its platform, thereby offering physicians faster and more accurate access to critical medical information at the point of care.
The transaction officially closed on July 29, 2025. Under the terms of the agreement, Doximity paid $26 million in cash, with the potential for an additional $37 million in equity grants contingent on performance and other factors. The acquisition brings together two technology-driven healthcare innovators, combining Doximity’s scale and reach in the U.S. medical community with Pathway’s AI capabilities and meticulously curated medical dataset.
Pathway: A Clinician-Led Startup With a Deep AI Foundation
Founded in Montreal, Pathway has quickly emerged as a prominent player in the AI-driven medical reference space. What sets Pathway apart is its unique team composition—half of its workforce is made up of practicing physicians. This clinical perspective has been central to Pathway’s development strategy, ensuring that its AI tools meet the real-world needs of healthcare providers across various specialties.
Over the past seven years, the Pathway team has quietly built one of the most comprehensive and structured datasets in medicine, specifically designed for AI applications. Their database includes curated content from nearly every significant medical guideline, pharmaceutical reference, and landmark clinical trial across a wide range of specialties. This meticulously structured data provides the foundation for their proprietary AI model, which has already demonstrated superior clinical accuracy when benchmarked against industry standards.
In a notable achievement, Pathway’s AI engine recently scored a record-breaking 96% on the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) benchmark, outperforming other medical AI models in terms of precision and reliability. This level of performance signals a leap forward in the potential of AI-powered tools to augment clinical decision-making in real-world healthcare settings.
A Shared Vision: Trusted AI for Evidence-Based Medicine
The acquisition was driven by a shared vision between Doximity and Pathway—a commitment to delivering trusted, evidence-based information enhanced by the speed, adaptability, and learning capabilities of AI.
Jeff Tangney, co-founder and CEO of Doximity, expressed enthusiasm about the acquisition, emphasizing the strategic fit and the value Pathway brings to Doximity’s mission. “We’re thrilled to welcome the Pathway team to Doximity,” Tangney said. “They’ve painstakingly built one of the best datasets in medicine, and it’s going to take our clinical reference capabilities to an entirely new level.”
Pathway’s current tools are already widely used in the medical community, with hundreds of thousands of registered users across North America. The company offers a premium subscription tier priced at $300 per year, which provides access to advanced features and in-depth clinical guidance. Thousands of healthcare providers have opted to pay for this enhanced access—an indication of the perceived value and utility of the platform.
With the acquisition, Doximity plans to make Pathway’s premium tools freely available to millions of physicians by embedding them directly into its existing suite of digital tools, including its mobile app and website. This integration is expected to significantly improve the accessibility of high-quality, AI-enhanced medical reference material at the point of care.
The Future of Clinical Decision Support: Speed Meets Credibility
The role of clinical decision support (CDS) tools in healthcare is evolving rapidly. In an environment where clinicians face increasing time pressures, administrative burdens, and rapidly changing medical guidelines, tools that provide instant, trustworthy information can make a tangible impact on patient outcomes.
This is where Pathway’s model excels. Unlike generic search engines or crowd-sourced medical forums, Pathway’s AI synthesizes only peer-reviewed, guideline-driven, and clinically validated data. This ensures that its suggestions are not just fast, but also reliable and defensible—critical qualities in a field where decisions can have life-or-death consequences.
Jon Hershon, CEO of Pathway, emphasized the importance of this trust factor in the company’s growth. “There’s a growing need for clinical tools that combine trusted evidence with the speed and adaptability of AI,” said Hershon. “Hundreds of thousands of users have registered for Pathway, and thousands pay $300 per year for our premium product. With Doximity, one of the most trusted platforms in healthcare, we’re now bringing that experience to millions for free, built directly into the tools they already use at the point of care.”
Strengthening Doximity’s AI Portfolio and Competitive Edge
Doximity’s acquisition of Pathway reflects a broader strategic shift as healthcare technology companies race to integrate more intelligent and responsive tools into their platforms. For Doximity, which serves over 80% of U.S. physicians, the addition of Pathway strengthens its portfolio of clinical reference solutions and reinforces its position as a leader in digital health innovation.
Previously, Doximity has launched a range of tools designed to streamline physician workflows, including telehealth solutions, secure messaging, curated medical news, and physician networking features. The integration of AI-powered reference tools into this ecosystem further enhances its utility at the point of care, particularly for diagnosis and treatment planning.
This acquisition also aligns with recent trends in healthcare where AI-driven decision support is being adopted not just in hospitals and academic centers, but also by community-based clinicians who require fast and accurate reference tools without sifting through massive amounts of data.
Clinical Accuracy Meets Scale: What Comes Next
In the short term, Doximity plans to embed Pathway’s technology into its mobile and desktop platforms, enabling seamless access to evidence-based guidance during clinical encounters. Physicians using Doximity will be able to access drug interactions, guideline summaries, and treatment recommendations that are dynamically generated by Pathway’s AI, all without needing to open a separate application.
This tighter integration is expected to drive user engagement and satisfaction, while reducing the cognitive load on clinicians who are already managing complex workflows. Doximity also aims to leverage Pathway’s structured medical dataset for the development of additional AI applications across specialties, potentially including diagnostic support, risk stratification, and patient education tools.
In the longer term, the acquisition sets the stage for Doximity to explore further innovations at the intersection of AI and clinical medicine, including natural language processing (NLP) for clinical documentation, AI-assisted medical writing, and predictive analytics.
Industry Implications: AI Maturity in Clinical Practice
The acquisition of Pathway by Doximity is yet another signal that AI in healthcare is maturing from a theoretical promise to a practical tool. The emphasis on clinically validated data, physician-led design, and point-of-care usability reflects a broader recognition that AI must be embedded into the everyday practice of medicine—not just layered on top of it.
By choosing to acquire a clinically sophisticated, physician-focused startup like Pathway, Doximity is sending a clear message to the healthcare industry: the future of clinical reference tools lies in combining human expertise with machine intelligence, at scale and with trust.
