Category Archives: Innovation

Four StartUp Health Entrepreneurs Tackling Cognitive Health Concerns

June 29, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsAmir Bozorgzadeh, Brain health, Digital Health, Health Moonshot Series, India Edwards, Kate Rosenbluth, Logan Plaster, Maor Cohen, Mark CavicchiaStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:03 — 41.3MB)

This episode is part of our monthly Health Moonshot series. Last month it was all about women’s health, today, we’re talking about founders and companies rethinking brain health. Kate Rosenbluth, PhD, Chief Science Officer & Founder at Cala Health, is transforming the standard of care for patients living with chronic diseases using non-invasive wearable neuromodulation therapies. The team has developed Cala Trio™, the first non-invasive targeted therapy that reduces hand tremor for people living with essential tremor (ET). Maor Cohen, CEO & Co-founder of n*gram health, is improving the quality of life for older adults with cognitive impairment using immersive digital experiences. RC21X co-founder Mark Cavicchia has developed two brain performance assessment tools, Roberto and RC21X, that create brain performance trend data for organizations through repeated use and produce session results in real-time, which bring about measurable improvements in work performance, productivity, and safety. Lastly, Amir Bozorgzadeh, CEO & Co-founder of Virtuleap, has created a virtual reality-based brain training platform. In this episode, the four entrepreneurs break down their innovative solutions and how they’re unlocking the mysteries of the brain.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com

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Building Exceptional Healthcare Provider & Patient Experiences With Karen Martell

June 22, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, Insights, Startups, UncategorizedKaren Matrell, Logan Plaster, patient, patient value, prescription, ProviderStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:30 — 62.5MB)

This week, we sat down (virtually) with an entrepreneur who’s still in the thick of scaling a business, Karen Martell, VP and GM at Alto Pharmacy. Karen built her career in tech, working at Square, before joining Alto in 2018, which was a pharmacy tech company at the time making its name with delightful user experiences for medical providers and free same day prescription delivery. In a few short years they’ve grown to cover 36 million people across areas including New York, Houston, Dallas, Seattle, and Las Vegas, and they recently raised $250 million to scale even more. In this conversation Karen gets candid about building relationships with providers, how Alto thinks through their growth strategy, and why they include a piece of candy with nearly every prescription delivery.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com

Payor Collaboration With Terry Booker of Independence Blue Cross

June 15, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, Insights, Startups, Uncategorizedbanking, Healthcare, Independence Blue Cross, insurance, investing, investments, Logan Plaster, Payor, Terry BookerStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:04 — 37.2MB)

Today we’re talking with Terry Booker, the VP of corporate development and innovation at Independence Blue Cross. Booker combines years of experience in investment banking and business development with an insider’s knowledge of Independence Blue Cross, an insurer that serves more than seven million people. In our conversation, which was held in front of a live virtual audience of founders from the StartUp Health portfolio, we get tactical about how startups can best partner with the largest insurers in the world.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com
Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content.
Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.

How Babyscripts Powers ‘Connected Pregnancies’ and Brings OB Care Where It’s Needed

June 8, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsAnish Sebastian, babyscripts, coronavirus, Health Moonshot Update, Juan Pablo Segura, Logan Plaster, womens healthStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:18 — 26.5MB)

In this episode, we sit down with Juan Pablo Segura, co-founder of Babyscripts, about virtual healthcare for moms-to-be.Around 50% of counties in the United States don’t have an OBGYN to take care of moms when they’re expecting. That’s around 10 million women who don’t have access to an OB for prenatal or primary care. At Babyscripts, Juan Pablo and his co-founder Anish Sebastian put together a kit of devices that pairs with an app so that OBs can monitor the health of their patients every day, virtually. Given the access problem, It’s an area of health where virtual care just made a lot of sense, but the COVID pandemic tipped it over the edge. Technology that used to be a forward-thinking nice-to-have is now a must-have – which is good news for expectant moms everywhere.

Safi Bahcall on Achieving Health ‘Loonshots’

June 1, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, Startups‘loonshots’, Entrepreneur, Safi Bahcall, StartUp Health, Steven Krein, Synta Pharmaceuticals, WisdomStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:54 — 74.0MB)

Bestselling author Safi Bahcall, a physicist by training and the former CEO of Synta Pharmaceuticals, believes that a key to achieving transformative ‘loonshots’ lies in asking better questions. During a recent StartUp Health Fireside Chat, he spoke candidly on the value of getting curious – particularly about our failures – and how organizations can nurture game-changing ideas from within.

Linking Clinical & Technical Worlds With Yauheni Solad, MD

May 25, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedDigital Health, Global Health, Logan Plaster, Yale New Haven Health, Yauheni SoladStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:05 — 48.2MB)

In this podcast episode, we dialed up Dr. Yauheni Solad, Medical Director of Digital Health at Yale New Haven Health, who shared his practical wisdom about what it really takes to have a successful partnership between a startup and a large health system.

Transforming Women’s Health With Dorothee Goldman and Missy Lavender

May 18, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, Insights, UncategorizedDorothee Goldman, Health Moonshot Series, India Edwards, Logan Plaster, Missy Lavender, Oratel Diagnostics, Renalis, womens healthStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:20 — 29.3MB)

At StartUp Health, we strongly believe that being a woman shouldn’t be a health risk factor. That’s why we’ve devoted an entire health moonshot to improving the health of every woman all around the globe, no matter the barrier. In this podcast episode, we dialed up two female entrepreneurs in the StartUp Health portfolio innovating in the Women’s Health Moonshot: Dorothee Goldman, the CEO and founder of Oratel Diagnostics, who built the first solution that can diagnose endometriosis using saliva, and Missy Lavender, CEO and founder of Renalis, who’s created an innovative solution to improve experiences and outcomes for people with pelvic health conditions. Hosts Logan Plaster and India Edwards learn how Goldman and Lavender are working to change the health paradigm in areas of women’s health that were neglected in the past.This episode is part of a new Health Moonshot Programming podcast series, where we’ll highlight a new health moonshot – and inspiring health transformers – each month

Introducing the Smartphone Epinephrine Injector, by Detroit-Based Startup Alerje

May 11, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, Insights, Startups, UncategorizedAlerje, Allergies, Childrens Health, epi pen, Health Moonshot Update, Javier Evelyn, Logan PlasterStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:22 — 29.4MB)

For some people, allergies are an inconvenience. But for millions of people around the world – particularly children – severe allergies are a major health concern. Eat the wrong thing and you could go into anaphylactic shock! They also seem to be getting worse. Tackling this growing problem is our guest on this episode, Javier Evelyn, the CEO and Founder of Alerje, which joined StartUp Health in 2020. Javier combined his personal experience suffering from severe allergies with his knowledge as a software developer to create an app and a device that administers epinephrine, in order to make life a little easier and a little safer for folks with bad allergies. In our interview we’ll get into Javier’s story, what he’s built, and how this year the Detroit-based startup got a boost from Google.

For Margaret Laws, Innovation Springs From Co-Creation

May 4, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, Insights, Startups, UncategorizedAdolescent Health, adolescents, California Health Care Foundation, child health, HopeLab, Margaret Laws, mental health, mental illness, Steven KreinStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:29 — 73.5MB)

Longtime friend of StartUp Health Margaret Laws has built a career on cross-sector, interdisciplinary partnerships. For 17 years, she served as the Director of Public Financing and Policy and the Director of Innovation for the Underserved program at the California Health Care Foundation. Today, as CEO and President of HopeLab, a social innovation lab founded and funded by the creators of eBay, she’s shifted her focus toward improving the health and wellbeing of adolescents. HopeLab’s multifactorial approach seeks to broach the many systemic and structural causes of mental illness in young people: “If there’s one thing that really requires multi-sectoral collaboration, this is it,” Laws says. At a recent Fireside Chat with StartUp Health co-founder Steven Krein, Laws explained how HopeLab’s uniquely holistic approach allows the company to tackle challenges from every angle.

Michelle Snyder Brings a Creative Spirit to Marketing and Investing

April 27, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, Insights, Startups, UncategorizedDigital Health, investing, Logan Plaster, McKesson Ventures, Michelle Snyder, startupsStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:20 — 74.6MB)

Michelle Snyder has done a bit of everything. Now a partner at McKesson Ventures (she joined the healthcare-oriented venture group in late 2020), the digital health veteran has seen innovation from every angle: driving the marketing behind startups like Epocrates and Welltok, mentoring early-stage entrepreneurs in accelerator and incubator programs, and making strategic investments at Welltok and now McKesson. But it’s her willingness to roll up her sleeves and develop creative solutions to challenges that makes Snyder an exceptional Jill-of-all-trades. Snyder took a look back on her career to date in a recent StartUp Health Fireside Chat that was as fun and freewheeling as it is chock-full of good advice.