Tag Archives: Health Moonshots

No More Suffering in Silence: Meet Two Founders Tackling Gut Health

December 15, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, Uncategorizedartificial intelligence, BetterMeal AI, Diet, Foursquare, Gut Health, Health Moonshot, Health Moonshots, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Innovation, Jeff Glueck, Logan Plaster, Nutrition, Nutrition & Fitness, Nutrition and Fitness, Salvo, Salvo Health, Swathi Arulguppe, Whole HealthNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (34.8MB)

On this week’s StartUp Health NOW episode, we’re talking about the future of gut health with Jeff Glueck, CEO & Co-founder of Salvo Health, and Swathi Arulguppe, CEO & Founder at BetterMeal AI.

There’s no doubt gut health is having a moment.

For a long time, health issues in the gut, like irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease, were met with outdated pamphlets about diets. The result was millions of people suffering in silence with painful, life-limiting conditions.

It’s not that GI doctors didn’t want to help. There just didn’t seem to be a lot that they could do.

Thankfully our understanding of the importance of gut health – and its connection to mental health and whole health – has resulted in a wave of innovation. And on this podcast episode, we’ll talk to some amazing entrepreneurs working to break this cycle and bring relief to patients.

Our first guest, Jeff Glueck was the CEO of Foursquare before he co-founded Salvo Health. He’s taking on gut health from two innovative angles.

The first is through the establishment of a digital clinic which makes specialty GI care available to patients at scale and on demand. Second, Glueck and his team are capitalizing on the latest research connecting gut health to mental health and other conditions. This connection between the gut microbiome and whole health is just exploding and Salvo is helping patients stay on the cutting edge.

Then we’ll check in with Swathi Arulguppe, CEO & Founder of BetterMeal AI.

You’ll hear how Arulguppe has taken her own journey with a debilitating GI condition, combined it with her passion for data, and built a platform for helping deliver AI-driven personalized meal recommendations to patients. By understanding the biological connections between human gut and food at the deepest level, she has built an app that helps guide its users on how to best manage their gut health through their nutrition.

Let’s jump in and find out where we are in gut health innovation.

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How Two Founders Are Using AI to Tackle Wasteful Healthcare Spending

November 30, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsAI, artificial intelligence, Cost to Zero, Health Cost IQ, Health Moonshots, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Healthcare, healthcare spending, Hindsait, Innovation, Jude Odu, Logan Plaster, Pinaki DasguptaNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (27.1MB)

On this StartUp Health NOW episode, we’re talking about wasteful spending in healthcare. This is one of those topics that’s hard to put in perspective. The institute of medicine says that 30% of healthcare spending could be categorized as wasteful, putting the total tab north of $750 million. It could be a trillion dollars.

Health insurance premiums are up 7% year over year, according to Health Affairs. Analysts point to inflation as a strong cause, but this nearly trillion dollars in unnecessary spending isn’t helping the equation.

Bottom line, healthcare costs are out of control and driving many people into medical bankruptcy. If 30% of healthcare spending is unnecessary, we’ve got to get this under control. Thankfully, we’ve got founders in the StartUp Health community who are passionate about this issue.

Jude Odu, CEO & Founder of Health Cost IQ, and Pinaki Dasgupta, CEO & Founder of Hindsait, will help us understand what constitutes wasteful spending and how advances in AI allow us to root it out at the source.

This is the kind of innovation that takes some courage, because pointing out to a hospital that they’re double billing or telling an insurer that they’re making massive errors doesn’t make you popular with either party. But it’s got to be done if we’re going to get overall health costs under control.

Enjoy the episode.

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Innovators: Health Transformer University fuels your health moonshot

Thriving Seniors: How These Founders Are Upgrading Senior Care from Early Disease Detection to Care Coordination

November 22, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedChristian Dansereau, Colby Takeda, Health Longevity Moonshot, Health Moonshot, Health Moonshots, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Healthy Longevity, Logan Plaster, Longevity, Pear Suite, Perceiv AI, PhD, Senior Care, SeniorsNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:20 — 29.2MB)

Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease. It’s the most common cause of dementia, impacting around 55 million people globally. It’s a leading of death for the elderly, but mortality isn’t the worst thing about Alzheimer’s disease. Before they die, this disease robs people of their minds, taking away the interests and knowledge that made them who they are. In a tragic way, it steals people’s identities.

That’s the challenge, and it’s a big one. Thankfully, there are incredible entrepreneurs and researchers working to tackle Alzheimer’s disease, and we’ve got one of them on the show this week. You’ll get to hear from Christian Dansereau, PhD, the CEO & Co-founder of Perceiv AI. Christian will share how his Canadian company – which joined the StartUp Health community in 2022 – is using decades of work in artificial intelligence to predict Alzheimer’s years earlier, so that the disease can be treated, slowed down, or even cured.

After Christian, we’ll talk to another founder passionate about helping seniors thrive as they age. Colby Takeda built Pear Suite after spending years running a senior care facility. Pear Suite – which also joined the StartUp Health community in 2022 – is a digital platform designed to empower community health workers, those front line providers and organizations that really understand the needs of the community on a block by block level. While they started with a focus on senior care, they’ve expanded their mission to new, often neglected communities, and their team is expanding as well.

Perceiv AI and Pear Suite offer two complementary takes on helping seniors living longer, healthier lives. It represents the marriage of early diagnosis, deep data, AI, and daily care, delivered by the right people, served up in actionable ways.

Listen in to learn more.

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Innovators: Health Transformer University fuels your health moonshot

Food as Medicine: The Next Wave of Tech-Enabled Nutrition

November 16, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsEdamam, Food as Medicine, Health Moonshot, Health Moonshots, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Logan Plaster, Nutrition, Nutrition & Fitness, Nutrition and Fitness, Shireen Abdullah, Victor Penev, YumlishNicole Kinsey

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At StartUp Health we’re all about what’s new and what’s next in health, and that often means talking about cutting-edge technology. But sometimes the most radical way to improve is also the simplest. One example? Our food.

This week, as we head into Thanksgiving in the United States, we’re talking about the role food plays in managing not just our weight and fitness, but actual chronic diseases. Some people use the term ‘Food as Medicine,’ and the more research we do, the more ways we find that tuning our nutrition can sometimes be superior to taking more pharmaceuticals.

While the idea of seeing food as a legitimate healthcare tool isn’t new, per se, there are some exciting new tools and platforms that leverage nutritional information and make it more accessible to the world. And that’s what we’re going to talk about on this episode.

Our first guest is Shireen Abdullah, CEO & Founder at Yumlish, who joined the StartUp Health community in 2019. Shireen’s platform puts a virtual nutritionist in your pocket, with a strong emphasis on boosting health literacy. She’s also worked very closely with the Air Force on workforce readiness. Turns out there are so many young people who are overweight and inactive that it’s hindering military recruitment and becoming a national security threat.

After Shireen we’ll hear from Victor Penev, CEO & Founder of Edamam, a Health Transformer since all the way back in 2013. Victor has made the world’s food knowledge more searchable through Edamam’s API so that users of platforms like NOOM and Virta Health can get personalized meal recommendations. We’ll also hear about their brand new integration with Open AI that brings a ChatGPT experience to the process of finding personalized meal plans.

Enjoy the episode!

Innovators: Health Transformer University fuels your health moonshot

These Founders Are Pairing AI + SDoH to Re-humanize Healthcare

October 26, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsAccess to care, Access to Care Moonshot, AI, Alvee, Alvee Health, artificial intelligence, Chris Turner, generative AI, health equity, Health Equity Moonshot, Health Moonshots, Health Transformers, HealthBook+, HLTH, Logan Plaster, Nicole Cook, SDoH, social determinants of health, StartUp Health @ HLTHNicole Kinsey

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Our episode this week was recorded during our StartUp Health Studio interviews at the recent HLTH conference in Las Vegas. At the event, a hot topic was how artificial intelligence, specifically generative AI, is going to fundamentally shift healthcare delivery. AI can help us comb through mountains of information and take action on data points that were previously hidden from view. But many people have a serious concern – even a fear – that AI will degrade the doctor-patient relationship and effectively dehumanize healthcare.

Our two guests today both joined the StartUp Health community earlier in 2023. They are pushing back against that narrative and suggesting with their companies that AI and big data can be leveraged to re-humanize healthcare delivery.

First we’ll talk with Nicole Cook, the CEO & Founder of Alvee, who is on a health moonshot mission to use AI-driven solutions to promote health equity and improve health outcomes for all. Cook reminds us that doctors are spending an inordinate amount of their time with a patient tapping away at a screen. The status quo is not working, so can new patient data tools help? Can they bring the right information to the surface at the right time and the right way, so healthcare providers can get back to making eye contact with patients?

What’s Cook is building at Alvee is resonating, as she went on to win the HLTH Startup Pitch Competition.

Next, we hear from Chris Turner, CEO & Co-founder at HealthBook+, who is attempting to create a fuller, more human picture of each patient using all available data including data from some nontraditional sources. HealthBook+ provides a simple-to-use, digital-first care platform which consolidates health data and keeps it private, as well as predicts conditions and recommends the next best health actions.

If the top line story for this episode is how data and AI could be used to create a more human electronic health record, the secondary story is about who can benefit from this technology.

Everyone’s talking about social determinants of health. This idea that we need to address the non-medical drivers of health, like access to fresh food and transportation. Healthcare providers care about these issues but don’t have the time or resources to analyze the data. That’s where Alvee Health and HealthBook+ can come in. Providing a fuller, more human analysis of patient data means taking into account important barriers to care and getting smart about how to overcome them.

So let’s get into it.

Innovators: Health Transformer University fuels your health moonshot

From the Archives: Dr. Robert Wilson on How Partnering with PreventScripts Enhanced His Medical Practice

August 9, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsAccess to care, Brandi Harless, chronic care, Cost to Zero, CovenantCare, CovenantCare Family Practice, Cure Disease, diabetes, Digital Health, Dr. Natalie Davis, Dr. Robert Wilson, health innovation, Health Moonshots, health transformation, Health Transformers, Logan Plaster, md, Natalie Davis, PreventScripts, Robert Wilson, Type 2 Diabetes, Type II DiabetesNicole Kinsey

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Typically on this show we talk to the health tech founders – who we call Health Transformers – that are creating the tools and platforms that will modernize our health system. Or we talk to top investors on what they’re looking for in startups.

But, on this week’s StartUp Health NOW, we look back at one of our most-popular podcast episodes, which featured a different kind of guest: one that helps round out the picture of how healthcare innovation goes from idea to real-world implementation.

Robert Wilson, MD, is a family physician who runs CovenantCare Family Practice, a multi-site medical practice in Tennessee. Dr. Wilson popped up on our radar because he was an early partner for PreventScripts, a startup that’s part of the StartUp Health community. PreventScripts, led by Brandi Harless and Natalie Davis, MD, has created a platform that helps family doctors like Dr. Wilson identify patients who would benefit from chronic care management. Think about a patient who is pre-diabetic and all signs point towards a long battle with Type 2 diabetes. While Dr. Wilson might be too overextended to identify and coach this patient before the disease sets in, PreventScripts can identify the risk and put the patient on a clinically-proven program. Patients with chronic diseases, or the risk of disease, get heightened care between visits, and Dr. Wilson gets added reimbursement.

We wanted to talk to Dr. Wilson to understand why he was interested in partnering with a health startup, as this is one of the key hurdles for any health innovator. How do you find the right clinical partner, a place to prove out your brilliant idea in the real world, and then iterate based on user feedback?

In the conversation – our most-downloaded episode in the past year – we’ll get into the real-world challenges that Dr. Wilson faces, his motivation for evolving his practice, and how PreventScripts has helped him fill gaps in patient care.

We will be back with fresh episodes after Labor Day!

Founders: Health Transformer University fuels your health moonshot

From the Archives: Aaron Kowalski, PhD, CEO of JDRF, Brings His Professional & Personal Experience to StartUp Health’s T1D Moonshot Impact Board

August 4, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsAaron Kowalski, Cure Disease, diabetes, Health Moonshots, JDRF, JDRF International, Logan Plaster, T1D, T1D Moonshot, Type 1 Diabetes, Type 1 Diabetes MoonshotNicole Kinsey

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For this StartUp Health NOW episode, we are taking a look back at a great episode featuring Aaron Kowalski, PhD, the CEO of JDRF International. Anyone orbiting in the universe of Type 1 diabetes knows that JDRF is the world’s largest nonprofit funder of T1D research. In his role atop the organization, Kowalski has combined his professional experience as a molecular biologist and executive with his personal passion to fight Type 1 diabetes in order to impact patients like his own brother.

Kowalski is also an exciting addition to StartUp Health’s Type 1 Diabetes Moonshot Impact Board. This board is a cross-disciplinary team of T1D experts spanning the gamut from research to funding to commercialization. We are thrilled that Kowalski is bringing his vast experience to this community in order to speed up innovation and support a generation of health entrepreneurs.

We will be back with fresh episodes after Labor Day!

Founders: Health Transformer University fuels your health moonshot

How Avanlee Care Is Teaming Up with Retailers to Address the Caregiver Crisis

July 14, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedAccess to care, Access to Care Moonshot, Avanlee Care, Avanlee Christine, Caregiver, Caregiving, Digital Health, Entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, health innovation, Health Moonshot, Health Moonshots, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Healthcare, Healthy Longevity, Innovation, Logan Plaster, LongevityNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:45 — 21.4MB)

Our podcast guest this week is Avanlee Christine, CEO and Co-founder of Avanlee Care, a company that joined StartUp Health in 2022. A few years ago Avanlee found herself helping to coordinate care for her grandmother. Everyone in the family wanted to help, but she lived far away, and there just wasn’t a good way to check in on her health and be the kind of support that Avanlee and her family wanted to be.

As many entrepreneurs do, Avanlee said to herself: There must be a better way. So She raised some funds (that’s a story in itself), built a team, and set out to design a platform that eases the burden on unpaid caregivers. And she did all while having her first child.

Listen in as she explains the details of the Avanlee Care product as it stands today and about how she’s finding eager partners in some of the country’s largest retailers and employers. Turns out easing the caregiver burden isn’t just a moral good, it’s also good for a company’s bottom line.

Founders: Health Transformer University fuels your health moonshot

How Health Tech Startups Can Launch with Government Contracts

June 9, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsAccess to care, Digital Health, health innovation, Health Moonshot, Health Moonshots, Health Tech, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Innovation, Logan Plaster, Nutrition, Nutrition and Fitness, Shireen Abdullah, Suzy Shirley, VA, Veteran Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, VHA, YumlishNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:36 — 18.9MB)

So you’re healthcare founder who has designed and built, by the sweat of your brow, a new platform or product that can help people live longer, healthier lives. Now, you just need to get it into people’s hands so they can use it, give feedback, help you iterate, and ultimately scale. As every founder knows, building the product is just a first step. Getting to market is a whole other challenge.

There are lots of different approaches for go-to-market strategy – with StartUp Health’s community of nearly 500 companies we’ve seen them all. One we wanted to highlight today is the idea of pursuing partnerships with the government or military. Given the enormous number of people that fall within the care of the military and federal agencies and the funding that gets allocated for their health, this is a tempting strategy. But it’s not for the faint of heart or those short on runway.

In this week’s podcast episode we’ll talk to two people who are making this marriage of startups and government contracts work – from two different angles.

First we’ll hear from Shireen Abdullah, CEO & Founder of Yumlish (which joined StartUp Health in 2019), about how she’s working with the US Air Force to help keep recruits healthy and service ready. Turns out, poor nutrition could actually become a national security threat.

Second, we’ll hear from the other side of the table. Suzy Shirley heads up community engagement at the VA’s Pathfinder program. Pathfinder was established just recently with the express purpose of making it easier for startups to access the Veterans Health Administration, which, if you’re not familiar, is massive. The VHA is the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States, providing care at more than 1200 facilities, covering over nine million enrolled veterans. Many healthcare startups would love to work with this patient population, but traditionally the administrative barriers have been high. Suzy Shirley explains how her team is changing the paradigm. She provides some practical tips for how runway-limited startups can make meaningful headway with such a huge government institution and start piloting high-impact products.

Enjoy the episode, which was recorded at the ViVE 2023 conference in Nashville.

Founders: Health Transformer University fuels your health moonshot

How These FemTech Founders Are Upgrading Below-the-Belt Health

June 2, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedHealth Moonshots, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Innovation, Moonshots, MUTU, MUTU System, Planet MUTU, Renalis, Renalis Health, womens healthNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:54 — 21.0MB)

For years we’ve tracked investment trends at StartUp Health and talked quarter after quarter about how women’s health has been underfunded. Finally, that is changing, and more founders and more funders are actively bridging that divide, creating new, necessary solutions for women, whether in fitness, pre- and post-natal care, chronic conditions, fertility, or menopause.

Our podcast guests this week are two Health Transformers who have been dedicated to FemTech before the new surge in interest in women’s health innovation.

First we’ll talk to Wendy Powell, CEO & Founder of MUTU System, a UK-based fitness platform that helps women recover from pregnancy and regain independence and confidence – focusing on core and pelvic floor reconnection, recovery, and strengthening. Wendy’s been in business for more than a decade and joined StartUp Health last year to help expand her reach.

Then we’ll hear from Missy Lavender, CEO & Founder of Renalis, about how she’s helping women with below-the-belt conditions like overactive bladder get the care they need through an AI chatbot called CeCe. Missy’s company – which joined StartUp Health in 2019 – is bringing therapy to women who have suffered in silence with pelvic health conditions. She’s not just extending a lifeline to women, but to their doctors as well, who have struggled to figure out how to manage these challenging conditions.

Enjoy the episode, which was recorded at the ViVE 2023 conference in Nashville, with these two founders breaking through the stigma around women’s pelvic health.

Founders: Health Transformer University fuels your health moonshot