Meet the Top Health DisruptHERS of 2020
#EachforEqual: In honor of International Women’s Day, we’re spotlighting the women entrepreneurs from StartUp Health’s portfolio who are improving health and wellness for billions in their mission to achieve health moonshots.
This month, in celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8 and the U.S. Women’s History Month, we’re putting a spotlight on our female Health Transformers and stories of progress from our Women’s Health Moonshot. It’s a special series we’re calling #EachforEqual, in honor of the 2020 IWD theme. To kick the series off we’ve created this special round-up of the female founders from the StartUp Health family.
According to our 2019 Year End StartUp Health Insights Report, last year was a banner year for female startup founders. Women’s health funding shows the strongest upward trend of any health moonshot on our list. Between 2018 and 2019, we tracked a 36% jump in total funding and a 79% surge in deal count. And in October, Pitchbook reported that VC investments in all-female founded companies hit a record high at $3.3 billion — a massive jump from $2.1 billion just two years prior.
But there’s still work to be done. Oliver Wyman’s Women In Healthcare Leadership survey reported that in the U.S. healthcare industry, women consumers make 80 percent of buying and usage decisions and represent 65 percent of the workforce, yet make up only 30 percent of C-suite teams and 13 percent of CEOs in the health innovation space. In order to address the issue of gender diversification in US healthcare leadership, “balance the uneven playing field when it comes to sponsorship and mentoring, explicitly address misperceptions, change the behaviors that go along with them, and build new habits,” notes Wyman’s report.
In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, we’re celebrating our female Health Transformers — founders, CEOs, innovators and leaders from the StartUp Health portfolio — and the work they’re doing across 11 Health Moonshots. Thirty-two percent of the hundreds of companies in the StartUp Health portfolio were founded by women, and many more have women at the helm. We look forward to continuing to do our part to eliminate the gender gap in both health leadership, and women’s healthcare.
For Parts II-IV of StartUp Health’s #EachforEqual, we asked over 50 female founders in StartUp Health’s portfolio one question: How will having more women in positions of leadership in health innovation impact the future of health? Follow the series to read what they have to say.
Access to Care
Lynda Brown-Ganzert
Co-Founder, Curatio
Health Moonshot: No patient alone.
Solution: Brown-Ganzert has co-created the world’s first social health prescription. Curatio is a digital app companion to drug therapies. It uses social therapy for improved treatment and self-management. It also collects real-world data on adherence and effectiveness.
Noteworthy: Curatio uses proprietary social algorithms to deliver the missing piece for chronic disease management: a social health prescription for patients. To date, the company has deployed the app across 70 countries and in four languages.
Message Lynda via email at curatio@startuphealth.com.
Kelli Thomas-Drake
Founder & CEO, MyPurpleFolder
Health Moonshot: Provide patients and their caregivers with free, easy, and seamless control of their healthcare information.
Solution: MyPurpleFolder creates a universal digital healthcare “master key” that unlocks all patient portals by seamlessly integrating with EMRs, providing patients with centralized access to their health information, giving providers improved continuity of care..
Noteworthy: MyPurpleFolder uses a bidirectional data platform to leverage and connect existing patient data without having to store it, and seamlessly integrates with all EMR systems. The startup was selected by National Institutes of Health + National Cancer Institute SBIR/STTR for a pilot program.
Message Kelli via email at mypurplefolder@startuphealth.com.
Cathy Cather
CEO, Parallel Profile
Health Moonshot: Save lives and billions in wasted healthcare spending by preventing adverse drug reactions (ADRs).
Solution: Parallel Profile™ includes a comprehensive genetic test and proprietary app integrated with pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) to instantly know if a medication will be safe, affordable, and effective. The tech converts a 30-page lab report into a simplified PBM alert at the pharmacy, along with a consumer summary and a focused clinical summary for prescribing physicians.
Noteworthy: Received the 2018 Innovation Award at International HEALinc conference.
Message Cathy via email at parallelprofile@startuphealth.com.
Tatyana Kanzaveli
CEO, Open Health Network
Health Moonshot: Empower healthcare organizations to educate and help patients manage their own health.
Solution: Dubbed PatientSphere, Open Health Network’s platform ingests patient data from sources like EHR records, mobile health applications, wearable devices and programs like Apple HealthKit into one dashboard.
Noteworthy: Kanzaveli has developed partnerships with McGill, Bonnie Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, Rare Cancer Research Foundation, ICF, UCSF Medical Center, American Heart Association, US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Sanofi, Cornell University, Harvard University, and Perthera.
Message Tatyana via email at openhealth@startuphealth.com.
Moira Schieke, MD
Founder, Cubismi
Health Moonshot: Revolutionize medical imaging with super-precision imaging tailored for each person.
Solution: Cubismi’s My Virtual Body One File™ (aka “One File”) organizes dispersed medical images and other clinical data into a singular framework for precision analytics of a patient’s body. A Bio-Map of each person’s body acts like a “Google Maps” for augmented clinical decision-making by doctors.
Noteworthy: Cubismi creates high quality data by putting the power of patient health big data into the hands of people and their doctors.
Message Moira via email at cubisme@startuphealth.com.
Rachel Trobman
CEO & Co-founder, Upside Health
Health Moonshot: Eliminate the devastation of chronic pain.
Solution: Upside Health’s app, Ouchie, is designed for pain patients and delivers targeted educational content, rewards for functional achievements and an active community, enabling suffers to be connected to a support system to help them manage their conditions. Ouchie also lets patients monitor and record their pain up-to-the-minute so they can see how certain treatments affect their symptoms.
Noteworthy: Ouchie is the official patient engagement app of the U.S. Pain Foundation and delivers increased control over pain (89%) and likelihood to adopt new treatments (83%).
Message Rachel via email at upsidehealth@startuphealth.com.
Chrissa McFarlane
Founder & CEO, Patientory
Health Moonshot: Empower patients to manage and transfer their health data, and to achieve actionable insights for improved health outcomes and well-being.
Solution: A “pay for what you store” app that allows doctors to securely share information with patients, family members, caregivers, specialists, and nurses, or chat via our HIPAA-compliant messaging platform. PTOY, Patientory’s cryptocurrency, allows users to purchase more storage space on the app, enabling the highest level of security and privacy.
Noteworthy: Patientory is the leading provider of dApp blockchain solutions for healthcare.
Message Chrissa via email at patientory@startuphealth.com.
Kimberly Gandy, MD, PhD
Founder & CEO, Play-It Health
Health Moonshot: Remote patient monitoring made easy.
Solution: The Plan-it Med RPM system monitors all aspects of health regimens in one place while billing for Remote Patient Monitoring and elevating adherence..
Noteworthy: The platform’s analytics stratifies populations for interventions with Play-it Health’s at-a-glance proprietary PALMn™ score, and assesses care plan changes using biometric and medication correlations.
Message Kimberly via email at playithealth@startuphealth.com.
Patricia Kloehn
Co-founder, President & CEO, HealthWide Solutions
Health Moonshot: Improve the emotional connection between patients and providers through a single platform that improves outcomes, reimbursement, and star ratings.
Solution: The Patient Happiness System is a novel pulse survey that promotes patient-provider engagement via playful emojis and enhances understanding of their unique health journey. The PHS triages scores into immediate actionable data and lists all scores over time via the patient’s own dashboard.
Noteworthy: PHS provides a service that alerts providers to pertinent areas to respond and recover patients who need more attention.
Message Patricia via email at healthwide@startuphealth.com.
Alexandra T. Greenhill, MD
Founder, CEO & CMO, Careteam Technologies
Health Moonshot: Solve the fragmentation of healthcare by enabling patient-centered care collaboration.
Solution: A secure digital platform that enables care teams to 1) implement and track care plans, 2) engage patients in self-management, 3) quickly identify and manage at-risk patients; and 4) provide closed-loop, 24/7 communication among all stakeholders, including patients and their families, on a role-based access model.
Noteworthy: Careteam has conducted two implementations of their platform that focused on dementia for over 4,000 patients across two hospital networks. They were selected to attend the 2018 World Economic Forum’s New Tech Champions Meeting in China, and received Canadian Medical Association’s 2018 Joule innovation grant.
Message Alexandra via email at careteam@startuphealth.com.
Karen Drexler
Health Moonshot: Make lab tests universally available by reducing sample collection-to-processing time to zero.
Solution: For medical diagnostics companies seeking to broaden access and clinical utility of plasma-based lab tests, Sandstone’s Torq Zero Delay Centrifuge System is a superior replacement to blood collection tubes that immediately stabilizes pure, cell-free plasma at the point of draw.
Noteworthy: Sandstone designed, built, and commercialized the Trak Male Fertility Testing System — an FDA-cleared CentriFluidic device that allows men to stably collect, measure and track sperm count at home. Named #1 Best Selling New Fertility Device on Amazon.
Message Karen via email at sandstone@startuphealth.com.
Linda Van Horn
Founder & CEO/President, iShare Medical
Health Moonshot: Simplify the sharing, consolidation, and analysis of medical records in order to create a learning health system to help detect, prevent, and treat disease sooner.
Solution: iShare Medical’s proprietary software, iShareID Direct Address, including APIs aggregate all of a person’s medical records from all of their providers into one complete, shareable, lifetime medical record.
Noteworthy: Van Horn has established a contract with a leading national PBM, a nationwide contract with the claims administrator for a Federal Government Agency, a major health system with 24 hospitals and cancer centers, and a large physical therapy provider with 286 physical therapy centers.
Message Linda via email at isharemedical@startuphealth.com.
Carrie Stern & Jordan Mills
Founder / CEO, MirrorMe3D
Health Moonshot: Unlock patients’ 3D data, providing surgeons and patients with access to critical care.
Solution: The MirrorMe3D platform enables plastic surgeons to fully plan surgeries from 3D data (including CT, MRI, ultrasound, stereophotogrammetry, and STL). In real time, they can collaborate with other physicians working on the case and conduct preoperative assessments and analysis.
Noteworthy: MirrorMe3D empowers patients by putting them in control of their 3D medical data. They can keep their records in a single spot, no matter how many times they change doctors or number of procedures they undergo.
Message Carrie and Jordan via email at mirrorme3d@startuphealth.com.
Susannah Bailin & Nan Xiao
CEO / Co-founder & CTO, AC Health (fka AdviceCoach)
Health Moonshot: Replace every paper handout given to patients with a personalized digital plan.
Solution: The AC Health Playbook App records personalized instructions through video and other medium to deliver the highest quality of remote care — strengthening the engagement between patient and provider, building trust and increasing compliance rates.
Noteworthy: Unlike mobile PT tools that are based on either printed or video libraries of generic exercises, AC Health’s technology is the only fully-custom Home Exercise Program.
Message Susannah and Nan via email at achealth@startuphealth.com.
Sheena Liu, MD, PhD
Founder, Medebound
Health Moonshot: Ensure medical care can transcend borders.
Solution: For Chinese patients who are diagnosed with devastating conditions, Medebound is a bilingual telehealth platform that helps them access the best medical specialists and knowledge base in the US rather than traveling elsewhere for treatment.
Noteworthy: Medebound can reach a much broader population with its exclusive access to Castle Connolly’s physician network of 52,000 top doctors.
Message Sheena via email at medebound@startuphealth.com.
Chelsea Rowe
Founder, GritWell
Health Moonshot: Help people live a healthier life, without the need for prescriptions, roaming the aisles of the pharmacy, or scaring themselves with misinformation.
Solution: MD reviewed plans that find and eliminate the cause of symptoms. GritWell pairs user-patients with certified health practitioners who create comprehensive treatment plans, along with ongoing care, community support and symptom-tracking.
Noteworthy: No insurance required. The GritWell subscription is the full price — no hidden fees or insurance needed. They also work to find the lowest price for any recommended diagnostics and supplements.
Message Chelsea via email at gritwell@startuphealth.com.
Jennifer Meller, MD, MBA
Co-founder & CEO, Navimize
Health Moonshot: Eliminate the waiting room.
Solution: Navimize integrates with EHRs to track patient visits to doctors offices and uses proprietary algorithms to predict delays, texting patients in real–time when doctors get delayed.
Noteworthy: In 2019, Meller established a partnership with athenahealth. In one case study, Navimize moved pediatrics practice from a 3.2 average Google star rating to a 4.8 average Google star rating (565% increase) in 4 weeks.
Message Jennifer via email at navimize@startuphealth.com.
Angela Dayton, MS
Co-Founder, CEO & President, MedForums
Health Moonshot: Streamline the connection between clinicians, education, and credentialing.
Solution: A one-stop, comprehensive platform for healthcare providers to identify, discuss, and access peer-reviewed medical education resources.
Noteworthy: MedForums is the only comprehensive and aggregated database of formal and informal medical education resources searchable by occupation, specialty, stage of training, need, and preferred learning style while also leveraging a crowdsourcing platform for instant access to peer-reviews on resources.
Message Angela via email at medforums@startuphealth.com.
Sarah Davidson
Founder & CEO, Resility Health
Health Moonshot: Unlock every person’s power of resilience to improve physical and mental health.
Solution: Resility™ delivers digital therapeutic programs that incorporates training exercises, coaching, and biofeedback from wearable sensors, personalized for each individual. Their proprietary Resility™ Score measures stress and resilience based on user input and physiological data so users and organizations can track changes over time.
Noteworthy: Davidson has completed two employer pilots with published case studies showing: 83% of participants felt improvement, 67% exhibited measurable reduction in muscle activity after completing an exercise.
Message Sarah via email at resilityhealth@startuphealth.com.
Sara Yelpaala & Medell Briggs, MD
Co-founder / CXO & CMO, access.mobile
Health Moonshot: access.mobile is on a mission to improve patient care through personalized mobile communications.
Solution: access.mobile’s automated, mass-personalized mobile technology, amHealth, is engaging hard-to-reach patients. amHealth automates patient communication through SMS, WhatsApp and other digital channels, using data analytics to shape outreach based on individual needs, health determinants and preferences. It also includes appointment scheduling and patient queuing software.
Noteworthy: Founded in late 2011 with offices originally in Kenya, access.mobile has expanded to South Africa and rural communities in the US.
Message Sara & Medell via email at access.mobile@startuphealth.com.
Cost to Zero
Sally Poblete,
Founder & CEO, Wellthie
Health Moonshot: Transform the small business insurance shopping experience.
Solution: Wellthie offers the only national small group benefits marketplace and accompanying analytics platform that connects carriers, brokers, and small business owners nationally to bring insurance coverage to employees.
Noteworthy: Poblete’s platform is the largest aggregated insurance marketplace for small businesses with over 13,000 products from over 300 carriers nationally, and has twice the products on the shelf compared to a close competitor.
Message Sally via email wellthie@startuphealth.com.
Grace Chen
Co-founder and CEO, LucidAct Health
Health Moonshot: Empower every care team to be heroes with AI technology.
Solution: LucidAct’s AI Assistant enables administrators and care teams to do the right thing at the right time, or take a more optimal step that obviates several inefficient/ineffective steps in order to streamline clinical care. They’ve built a system that captures workflow steps and their relationships, and then produce predictive models based on the workflows, EMR (and other existing) data, as well as unstructured text such as notes.
Noteworthy: Their AI Team Assistant has already been shown to eliminate 2 out of 5 steps necessary for patient onboarding.
Message Grace via email at lucidact@startuphealth.com.
Gail Port
CEO & Co-founder, eHealthAnalytics
Health Moonshot: Reduce the cost of healthcare by predicting the effectiveness of implanted medical devices in patients with multiple chronic conditions taking multiple medications simultaneously.
Solution: eHealth Analytics’ Pythia PREDICT™ is a cloud-based web platform that ensures patients are paying for the most effective, safest, and least expensive treatments in combination with medical devices. FORMULARY PREDICT™ is the first commercially-available formulary for implanted medical devices. It will provide healthcare payors and providers with the ability to predict the clinical appropriateness, risk, and cost of medical devices.
Noteworthy: eHealthAnalyitcs’ machine learning-based models have achieved 98.5% predictive accuracy as to which medical devices would be recalled using four years of data from the FDA, as validated by back-testing and a second party.
Message Gail via email at ehealthanalytics@startuphealth.com.
Cure Disease
Nirinjan Yee
Founder & CEO, BreathResearch
Health Moonshot: Improve early detection and treatment of respiratory diseases.
Solution: A low cost spirometer with built-in lung sound analysis and an artificial intelligence platform to improve early detection and tracking of lung disease.
Noteworthy: Unlike traditional spirometers, BreathResearch’s system adds lung sound analysis beyond human hearing and uses AI to identify and track lung disease that is often overlooked by spirometry alone.
Message Nirinjan via email at breathresearch@startuphealth.com.
Lauren Weiniger
Co-Founder, SAFE Health
Health Moonshot: Stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in our lifetime.
Solution: For sexually active singles who want to protect themselves and their partners from the STD epidemic, the SAFE App lets people show their verified STD status on their phone and confirm their partner’s status.
Noteworthy: SAFE Health is the only app that lets users order a full suite of sexual health prescriptions (e.g. PrEP/PEP, Valtrex, STD antibiotics, birth control, Viagra) right through the app from their 50-state physician network.
Message Lauren via email at safehealth@startuphealth.com.
Kate Rosenbluth, PhD
Founder & CSO, Cala Health
Health Moonshot: Raise the standard of care for chronic disease.
Solution: Wearable devices that are designed to deliver individualized peripheral nerve stimulation, beginning with patients who suffer from essential tremor, which affects seven million people across the United States.
Noteworthy: Cala Trio, the first non-invasive treatment for hand tremor, fits around the wrist like a watch and is uniquely calibrated to treat an individual’s tremor symptoms. Cala is also developing wearable solutions in neurology, cardiology, and psychiatry.
Message Kate via email at calahealth@startuphealth.com.
Sarah Iranpour, PMP, CEO
Founder, PerSoN Clinic
Health Moonshot: Give all patients with chronic disease a voice in treating their own disease.
Solution: PerSoN Clinic’s AI-assisted e-counseling converts subjective conversations into measurable and meaningful data, featuring National Cancer Institute-compliant toxicity-related symptoms tracker for patients going through radiation and/or chemo therapies.
Noteworthy: In February 2020, PerSoN Clinic began piloting their platform in mental health practice.
Message Sarah via email at personclinic@startuphealth.com.
Carolyn Lam, MD
Co-founder, Eko.ai
Health Moonshot: Automate the fight against heart disease.
Solution: Eko.ai’s machine-learning software transforms today’s 30-minute manual echocardiography, which is only performed by professionals, into a click of a button that takes seconds and can be performed by all.
Noteworthy: Eko.ai has unique access to proprietary data for training their deep learning models — tens of thousands of annotated echo images, “gold standard” matching MRIs, clinical outcome data, and full patient consents, in addition to a global network of echo core labs eager to validate and publish their solution.
Message Carolyn via email at eko.ai@startuphealth.com.
End Cancer
Andrea Wilson Woods
CEO & Co-founder, Cancer University
Health Moonshot: Create a powerful sustained movement that changes cancer care in America.
Solution: Cancer U is an online membership platform for cancer patients and caregivers to educate and empower them to become advocates for their cancer care in order to improve outcomes and reduce costs. End users are patients and caregivers, and primary customers are payers, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies.
Noteworthy: Pharmaceutical companies can sponsor scholarships for Cancer U in specific cancers and join the startup’s corporate council, which allows them moderated access to patients and caregivers.
Message Andrea via email at canceruniversity@startuphealth.com.
Anita Singh
CEO & Co-founder, GenID Solutions
Health Moonshot: Identify everyone who should be screened for hereditary cancers.
Solution: GenID Solutions performs a cancer risk analysis on patients and can accurately predict which hereditary cancers they should be screened for.
Noteworthy: To date, Singh has partnered withthe athenahealth MDP Program, giving access to 85,000+ providers, and has signed a contract with EPIC, giving access to 79,000 providers and 51% of the US population.
Message Anita via email at genid@startuphealth.com.
Women’s Health
Missy Lavender
Founder & CEO, Renalis
Health Moonshot: Revolutionize digital solutions to elevate pelvic health.
Solution: A suite of digital pelvic health platforms to improve the patient experience and the efficiency of patient and provider interaction.
Noteworthy: Renalis looks to launch its first two products — for fibroids and endometriosis, and overactive bladder (OAB) — in Q3 2020. With the OAB platform, Lavender will seek FDA approval and reimbursement, creating the first digital therapeutic in pelvic health.
Message Missy via email at renalis@startuphealth.com.
Allison Kasirer
Founder & CEO, Robyn
Health Moonshot: Destigmatizing and democratizing one’s right to have a family.
Solution: Robyn’s platform serves as a digital companion in a woman’s journey to parenthood and provides access to a network of providers in fields like nutrition, acupuncture, and mental health, while offering a community of support where users can share, learn, and gain accountability for healthy choices during pre-pregnancy and beyond.
Noteworthy: Allison is working with 30 providers in free trials with an additional 50 providers in the pipeline.
Message Allison via email at robyn@startuphealth.com.
Veronica Berry
Founder & CEO, TruDiary
Health Moonshot: Eliminate the gender gap in healthcare.
Solution: TruDiary is an interactive health app that uses blockchain technology to allow women to create a smart health diary, saving time and improving diagnosis through a truer, more complete snapshot of relevant patient data. TruDiary gives the doctor a storyboard of relevant data and allows for peer-to-peer mentoring via the patient’s private blockchain.
Noteworthy: TruDiary was selected as a participant in Conscious Venture Lab’s accelerator program.
Message Veronica via email at trudiary@startuphealth.com.
Stephanie Canale, MD
Founder & CEO, Lactation Lab
Health Moonshot: Optimize infant nutrition and maternal health.
Solution: For breastfeeding mothers who want to optimize their infants’ health, Lactation Lab provides testing kits that analyze breast milk to show exactly what nutrition their infant is getting, allowing mothers to recognize and replenish deficient nutrients.
Noteworthy: Lactation Lab’s test collects milk over a 24-hour period and comes in 3 different kits to measure different levels of nutritional information. Once the lab has run the test, the mother receives a test result package that provides action items to supplement their milk to ensure their infants are getting all their nutrients.
Message Stephanie via email at lactationlab@startuphealth.com.
Dorothee Goldman
CEO, Oratel Diagnostics
Health Moonshot: Transform current diagnosis for pelvic pain in women.
Solution: Oratel Diagnostics’ offers a saliva-based diagnostic technology, ENDO-TEK, that can identify endometriosis with 90% accuracy, providing a low cost, easy-to-use, non-invasive diagnostic for endometriosis in order to market new therapeutics for endometriosis.
Noteworthy: Oratel demonstrated over 90% accuracy in three clinical studies with Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Harvard). Notable partnerships include Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Cornell University: JumpStart, Endometriosis Association, US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and National Institutes of Health.
Message Dorothee via email at oratel@startuphealth.com.
Jill Angelo
Co-Founder & CEO, Gennev
Health Moonshot: Empower every woman to take control of her health in menopause.
Solution: Gennev’s online clinic offers video appointments with menopause practitioners, products for symptom relief, patient monitoring, remote prescription services, online education and community.
Noteworthy: They’re the only one-stop shop for menopause care with a lifetime membership. Gennev currently has a practitioner network of 200 physicians and over 27,000 monthly users. Notable partnerships include Microsoft, North American Menopause Society (NAMS), Enzyme Health, PrimeWomen, Hyster-sisters, and Global Women 4 Well-Being.
Message Jill via email at genneve@startuphealth.com.
Children’s Health
Sandy Whitehouse, MD
Co-founder & CMO, Tickit Health
Health Moonshot: Enable young people to more effectively share their story and personal information with the individuals and organizations that support them in order to improve care.
Solution: A web-based platform that captures personal information from individuals via digitally empathetic survey and assessments, coupled with management tools for the organizations that use the data to service them.
Noteworthy: Tickit is used by organizations in Australia, Canada, and the U.S, and is actively used to support counsellors, care providers, and public health organizations in over 80 schools and healthcare organizations.
Message Sandy via email at tickithealth@startuphealth.com.
Nutrition & Fitness
Susan Bratton
CEO, Savor Health
Health Moonshot: Revolutionize cancer treatment by delivering personalized, clinically and contextually appropriate nutrition interventions to patients to improve adherence, reduce costs, and empower patients.
Solution: Saor Health’s Ina™, the “Intelligent Nutrition Assistant” chatbot, provides highly personalized, clinically- and contextually-appropriate nutrition interventions to patients with chronic medical conditions via SMS chat 24/7 “on demand” in a HIPAA compliant manner.
Noteworthy: Recognized leader in evidence-based oncology nutrition with established partnerships including Institute of Medicine, Bayer, Celgene, Merck, Pfizer, CancerCare, Cancer Support Community, AICR, Livestrong, and more
Message Susan via email at savorhealth@startuphealth.com.
Aubrey Jenkins & Michelle Alencar, PhD
Co-founder & CEO / Co-founder & CSO, inHealth Medical Services
Health Moonshot: Revolutionize obesity treatment.
Solution: inHealth Medical Services has created a virtual health coaching and obesity medicine platform that can work with any technology platform on the market, allowing physicians to integrate training programs for their patients, along with a billing system.
Noteworthy: Based on their two published clinical trials, in Health’s program increased revenue on obesity patients by over $100 per patient per month.
Message Aubrey and Michelle via email at inhealthmedical@startuphealth.com.
Brandi Harless & Natalie Davis, MD
Co-founders, PreventScripts
Health Moonshot: Help people maintain healthy habits in their daily lives through automated preventative medicine.
Solution: A patient-facing mobile app that encourages positive behavioral health changes and enables at-home support and patient tracking.
Noteworthy: PreventScripts comes preloaded with ADA, AHA, and Diabetes Prevention Program content with biometric color coding compliant to 2018 AAP adolescent and 2018 AFP adolescent/adult guidelines for Blood Pressure, Weight, Blood Sugar and BMI.
Message Brandi and Natalie via email at preventscripts@startuphealth.com.
Lucy Reynales Mohan
CEO & Co-founder, FitFetti
Health Moonshot: Build the largest opt-in population health support community to measurably impact health.
Solution: FitFetti provides an interconnected digital environment for people to support each other as they reach measurable health and fitness goals. Each week, our algorithms automate personalized health goals, which when reached, unlock sponsorships in the form of coupon codes for discounts and free products from brand partners.
Noteworthy: FitFetti’s multi-channel social network includes care teams as well as participants’ natural social circles, offering a self-sustaining support mechanism.
Message Lucy via email at fitfetti@startuphealth.com.
Shireen Abdullah, MBA, PMP, CEO
Founder, Yumlish
Health Moonshot: Address the socioeconomic and lifestyle barriers to dietary adherence in order to impact health outcomes.
Solution: Yumlish is an AI-powered digital health solution that provides nutrition therapy to impact health outcomes for diabetes. Based on the zip code, the platform can determine food insecurity, a determinant of health, in order to suggest groceries. Other factors, such as income, education, etc. are used to provide nutritional therapy and adoption incentives.
Noteworthy: Abdullah has completed a successful pilot with community clinics in the Dallas-area with the following results: participants lost 1–2 lbs/week and reported improvement in sleep quality and more energy.
Message Shireen via email at yumlish@startuphealth.com.
Jessica Corbin & Kristi Britto
Co-founders, REVITA5
Health Moonshot: Solve the human energy crisis by changing the way organizations manage stress.
Solution: REVITA5 is using your employer as a conduit for serving up data-backed lifestyle recommendations that manage stress and burnout. Revita5 employee-users take a 55-second assessment in the morning with an armband that comes with the app subscription, and receive a Heart Rate Variability Score (HRV). Scores are aggregated in order to provide a group health analysis to employers, along with recommended lifestyle interventions that address health challenges related to focus, energy, stress and sleep.
Noteworthy: REVITA5 works hand and hand with some of the most elite health and performance coaches in the world to create programs tailored to a company’s needs, whether it be stress, sleep, strength, mindfulness, or leadership.
Message Jessica and Kristi via email at revita5@startuphealth.com.
Brain Health
Mylea Charvat, PhD
Co-founder & CEO, Savonix
Health Moonshot: A world without dementia.
Solution: Charvat and her team have developed a neurocognitive assessment and data centralized system called the Savonix Digital Cognitive Assessment Platform. It provides a simple and cost-effective way to gauge cognitive function, to organize, store, and gather insights from cognitive data and to provide clinical support to improve patient outcomes and accelerate medical innovation.
Noteworthy: In partnership with the Boston University School of Public Health, Charvat has launched a landmark study to collect cognitive and brain health data digitally, along with daily behavior and biomarker data from 400,000 individuals. The patient registry has the potential to drive improved pre-clinical classification of risk factors for dementias, including Alzheimer’s Disease.
Message Mylea via email at savonix@startuphealth.com.
Noe Foster
Co-founder & Chief Innovation Officer, HealthTechApps
Health Moonshot: Give screenagers and physicians superpowers to prevent costly re-injuries after a concussion.
Solution: meprint™ — a personalized machine learning platform that captures a user’s video, audio and text content to baseline an individual’s brain health prior to and after a concussion injury, giving physicians superpowers to personalize concussion treatment plans that prevent costly re-injuries.
Noteworthy: HealthTechApps is the only solution designed to collect user reported symptoms and trigger data to monitor and manage concussions following diagnosis until full recovery, all while being seamlessly integrated into the user’s life flow and the physician’s workflow.
Message Noe via email at healthtechapps@startuphealth.com.
Mental Health & Happiness
Navya Singh, PsyD
Co-founder & Chief Scientific Officer, wayForward
Health Moonshot: Cure mental illness around the globe by providing a comprehensive behavioral health solution.
Solution: wayForward is an app and web based behavioral health solution that is modular, meaning EAPs, employers, and employees can mix and match programs for each member and provider them with the whole continuum of care.
Noteworthy: wayForward has seven enterprise clients, covering approximately 1.6 million employees, and have shown an 80% drop in anxiety levels by users.
Message Mavya via email at wayforward@startuphealth.com.
Tanya Yarkoni
Founder, Rezilient
Health Moonshot: Prevent chronic stress, loss of productivity, and health decline associated with long-term caregiving at home.
Solution: Rezilient is a behavior change, coaching platform that uses AI and predictive analytics to prevent chronic stress, loss of productivity, isolation, and decline of health associated with long-term caregiving at home. Their coaching platform includes personalized content, the latest caregiver intervention protocols, and caregiver wisdom to help caregivers stay on track and reduce the negative effects of role overload.
Noteworthy: Unlike current dementia care solutions like TCare and SeniorLink, Rezilient provides real-time predictive interventions and an in-app training system for dementia caregiving.
Message Tanya via email at rezilient@startuphealth.com.
Katherine Grill, PhD
Founder, Neolth
Health Moonshot: Improve access to holistic care to prevent stress-related complications for people with chronic disease.
Solution: Physicians prescribe Neolth to their patients using a code that links their account for monitoring. Patients complete a scientific digital assessment and then are given a personalized, at-home stress management plan. The plan is updated monthly with new relaxation practices created by integrative doctors. Both patients and providers receive progress reports.
Noteworthy: Neolth launched their HIPAA-compliant cloud platform in 2019 and have established the Neolth Featured Practitioners Program with five healthcare leaders, to record 600 minutes of audio and create 40+ written relaxation practices.
Message Katherine via email at neolth@startuphealth.com.
Marina Borukhovich
Founder, YourCoach
Health Moonshot: Give the world’s projected 9 billion people by year 2030 access to global squads of health coaches in order to heal mind, body and soul.
Solution: A client management solution that empowers health coaches to build their businesses while surrounding their clients with the expertise needed to live a healthy life.
Noteworthy: Borukhovich’s vision is to use the platform to gather data and evidence that shows how lifestyle health coaching can prevent some of the most prevalent noncommunicable chronic diseases.
Message Marina via email at yourcoach@startuphealth.com.
End Addiction
Jackie Iversen
Co-Founder & Head of Clinical Development, Sen-Jam
Health Moonshot: Bring relief to victims of the opioid epidemic.
Solution: Most individuals remain dependent on opioids because the pain of withdrawal is too great to discontinue use. Sen-Jam’s Exulta product reduces pain and inflammation by combining an opioid-sparing NSAID with a TLR-4 inhibiting antihistamine that offers the convenience of GI protection for everyday use. Exulta can disrupt opioid use disorder across all three levels of disability: dependence, tolerance, and withdrawal.
Noteworthy: Sen-Jam has conducted an in-vivo study for SJP-005, Prevention of Symptoms Associated with Opioid Withdrawal, which shows a 50% reduction in symptoms and a 30% reduction in Opioid requirements.
Message Jackie via email at senjam@startuphealth.com.
Longevity
Alison Harmelin
Co-founder, Zeel
Health Moonshot: Zeel brings you wellness on demand.
Solution: Zeel is the creator of Massage On Demand® and uses cutting-edge mobile technology to deliver spa-quality massages to customers at homes, hotels, spas, workplaces, and events. They’ve perfected their app-based delivery model and are expanding into yoga, meditation.
Noteworthy: Now spans 95+ cities and Zeel’s brand ambassadors include leading public figures such as Venus Williams (who is also a board member and advisor) and Cindy Crawford.
Message Alison via email at zeel@startuphealth.com.
Nancy Koenig
CEO, Caremerge
Health Moonshot: Ensure the aging experience is filled with peace of mind and joy.
Solution: A simple care coordination platform that allows all stakeholders to get relevant automated alerts and help intervene in a timely manner for improved outcomes, and promotes collaboration with families.
Noteworthy: Over 500 client locations across the United States.
Message Nancy via email caremerge@startuphealth.com.
Jean Anne Booth
CEO & Founder, UnaliWear
Health Moonshot: Extend independence with dignity for millions of vulnerable people.
Solution: UnaliWear’s voice-first Kanega watch provides discreet support for falls, medication reminders, and a guard against wandering with guide-me-home assistance, plus AI that learns the wearer’s lifestyle. No smartphone required, no need to remove the watch to charge.
Noteworthy: Booth has established channel partnerships with three of the largest medical alarm call centers in the US — all have consumer brands and independent dealer networks.
Message Jean Anne via email at unaliwear@startuphealth.com.
Beth Sanders
Founder & CEO, LifeBio
Health Moonshot: Extend independence with dignity for millions of vulnerable people.
Solution: LifeBio provides individuals and families a template of biographical questions designed to elicit meaningful responses from individuals of advanced age or facing memory loss or life-threatening illness. The company also equips care facilities with software, journals, class materials, and other tools to promote wellbeing through reminiscence therapy, improving mood and behavior.
Noteworthy: Beth was inspired to found LifeBio when she interviewed her grandmother and witnessed her delight in sharing her life story with her family.
Message Beth via email at lifebio@startuphealth.com.
Jenny Gallagher
Co-founder & CEO, Help-Full
Health Moonshot: Wipe out loneliness in older age and empower seniors to thrive.
Solution: A community network where members of all ages get and give practical help, share skills and talents, and enjoy common interests. Visits between members range from helping a member clean their refrigerator, teaching a favorite family recipe, accompanying a member to a live jazz concert, practicing Japanese, and rides to the airport.
Noteworthy: Help-Full’s platform runs on Time Tokens, which are earned when one member helps another member.
Message Jenny via email at helpfull@startuphealth.com.
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