Tag Archives: Quit Genius

(Re)Meet Pelago: Well-Funded Quit Genius Rebrands to Make Addiction Treatment More Accessible



When we first met today’s StartUp Heatlh NOW podcast guest, he was a newly-minted doctorpreneur. After finishing med school Yusuf Sherwani, MD, teamed up with a couple fellow doctors to tackle a massive, pervasive problem they were facing in their clinics: Day after day they were seeing patients struggling with addiction, whether smoking or drinking or opioids. These were people stigmatized by their addictions into fear and inaction or they’d reached out for help and found the options unsuccessful.

This group of physicians thought, with today’s technology and breakthroughs in addiction management, there has to be a better way. So they built Quit Genius, the world’s first virtual clinic for substance use management. They combined the best digital health tools with leading cognitive behavioral therapy and medication assisted treatment.

Their solution met a hungry market. Since inception, Dr. Sherwani and his team – who joined StartUp Health in 2020 – have helped more than 750,000 people manage their substance use, and with $77 million raised, they are poised to scale even further.

We wanted to sit down with Dr. Sherwani to hear their scale-up vision and also to get the story behind their recent rebrand to Pelago. In this episode, Dr. Sherwani explains the name change – it’s derived from the word archipelago – and shares where this growing company is heading next.


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These Three Startup Health Entrepreneurs Are Working to Fight Addiction and End the Opioid Epidemic



This special episode is part of our monthly Health Moonshot series. Each month we take one of StartUp Health’s 12 audacious health goals and highlight founders working to make the impossible a reality. This month we’re talking about the moonshot to End Addiction & the Opioid Crisis. Hosts Logan Plaster and India Edwards discuss three entrepreneurs from the StartUp Health portfolio who have developed incredible technology to help fight addiction. J.D. Meints, CEO and Founder of NuLife Virtual, has created a behavioral health platform that extends the benefits of a close-knit rehab community into the home. Yusuf Sherwani, MD, CEO & Co-founder of Quit Genius, has built one of the world’s first digital clinic delivering a comprehensive medication-assisted treatment program for multiple addictions. Last but not least, Sumeet Maniar, CEO & Founder of WellBrain, has developed a digital chronic pain management platform for providers.
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.
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