Kiah Williams + Adam Kircher

Every year, more people in the U.S. die from not taking their prescription medicines—because they can’t afford them—than from opioid overdoses and car accidents combined. With soaring copays, deductibles, and insurance costs, too many people are faced with the impossible choice between buying medication and having enough for food and housing—especially low-income adults with a chronic illness. 

At the same time, an estimated $11 billion of unused medicine goes to waste every year. Kiah Williams and Adam Kircher co-founded SIRUM to redistribute unopened, unexpired surplus medicine to patients who need it. What began as a student project at Stanford has today grown into the largest drug-recycling program in the U.S. SIRUM collects medications from donors like nursing homes and pharmacies and uses an innovative technology platform to get them to patients at lower cost. With a vision to save medicine to save lives, Williams, Kircher, and their team have provided more than $200 million worth of medicine to more than 150,000 patients.

More related to Kiah Williams + Adam Kircher:

• Watch Williams’s TED Talk on the need for this work

• Hear Kircher talk about the technology on the podcast Geeks Who Lead

• See how SIRUM works