StartUp Health Launches Diabetes Moonshot to Fight Global Burden of Chronic Disease
StartUp Health’s dedicated mission rallies entrepreneurs, investors, and the best in technology to prevent, manage, and cure one of the deadliest killers in the world.
StartUp Health, a global organization leading the movement to transform health by building the world’s largest community of Health Transformers, announced the launch of StartUp Health’s Diabetes Moonshot, a dedicated mission to prevent, manage, and cure one of the world’s deadliest chronic diseases, with an initial emphasis on type 1 innovation.
As President Biden emphasized during his 2022 State of the Union Address, diabetes has become one of the great health challenges of our time. This chronic disease that affects how the body processes blood sugar is everywhere: in our families, among our friends, and in our communities. According to the CDC, in the US alone, 11.3% have diabetes and by 2050, five million people in America are expected to be diagnosed with type 1 diabetes; it’s also deadlier than many people realize and globally continues to be responsible for the deaths of more than 1.5M people a year.
As big as that death toll is, it’s actually just the tip of the iceberg. Globally, half a billion people are impacted by the disease in one way or another. Diabetes increases the likelihood of stroke by four times and makes people more susceptible to heart disease. By putting too much glucose in your system, diabetes damages blood vessels and nerves and contributes to renal failure. There’s hardly an area of health that diabetes doesn’t affect.
But there’s also promising news. We have the knowledge and the tools to mitigate — and in many cases reverse — millions of cases of diabetes. For people with type 1 diabetes, new continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) technology is making it simple and automatic to keep track of insulin levels. For people with type 2, which can be largely managed with medications, nutrition, and exercise, we’re seeing a host of tech-enabled solutions that improve daily health and extend life.
“We are in a crisis given the exponential growth of diabetes and the human and economic cost to society,” said David Weingard, Founder and Executive Chairman of Cecelia Health and a key partner driving this moonshot with StartUp Health. “With the launch of the Diabetes Moonshot, StartUp Health will be accelerating global innovation with a focused collaborative innovation model designed to speed up progress. Creative and effective solutions developed across academia, nonprofit, and commercial environments will be collectively nurtured in scale to accelerate impact. The Diabetes Moonshot will be built on a level of collaboration that the world hasn’t seen before.”
“Diabetes impacts the lives of half of the world, with an accelerating diagnosis rate,” said Steven Krein, CEO and Co-founder of StartUp Health. “We are excited to be launching a dedicated Diabetes Moonshot because we believe that together we can inspire a global community of Health Transformers to join our mission to prevent, manage, and cure diabetes, ultimately improving the health of billions. By collaborating as a networked community, we can accelerate the commercial development and availability of effective solutions so that we can change the face of diabetes forever.”
“It’s time for a new era in the fight against diabetes,” says Unity Stoakes, President and Co-founder of StartUp Health. “It’s time to combine the energy of hundreds — even thousands — of passionate entrepreneurs with the world’s top investors and institutions. For nearly a decade StartUp Health has laid the groundwork for this critical health moonshot, supporting scores of entrepreneurs in the fight against chronic disease. Now it’s time to take that mission to the next level with organized support and global partners committed to bringing the next generation of diabetes solutions to the world.”
The establishment of StartUp Health’s Diabetes Moonshot builds on a series of investments StartUp Health has made in the diabetes space, including in Sami Inkinen and his team at Virta, now a $2B unicorn with the “first clinically-proven treatment to safely and sustainably reverse type 2 diabetes without medications or surgery.” StartUp Health has backed David Weingard and Mark Clermont of Cecelia Health with their high-tech, high-touch approach to diabetes coaching. StartUp Health has also recently invested in exciting early-stage companies like Yumlish, where CEO and Founder Shireen Abdullah is taking a culturally-aware approach to nutrition coaching. These are just a few of the dozens of founders in the StartUp Health portfolio working to end diabetes.
StartUp Health is actively looking to expand its investments in this area with an immediate focus on solutions for type 1 diabetes and plans to start by investing in 30 to 50 companies focused in this area.
In addition to making strategic investments into startups focused on diabetes, StartUp Health will leverage its global media platform and network platform to provide ongoing updates on the progress and impact made, including portfolio company news, unique research insights, and events.
Finally, the launch of StartUp Health’s Diabetes Moonshot is a call for partnership. Entrepreneurs who are innovating in the diabetes ecosystem are encouraged to apply here to StartUp Health and join the firm’s global army of more than 1,000 Health Transformers working to achieve health moonshots. If you’re an entrepreneur who believes that we need to leverage collaboration and moonshot thinking to deliver quality care to everyone in the world regardless of location or income, we want to meet you.
This launch is also an invitation to investors and partners. If you believe in a collaborative, global approach to prevent, manage, and cure diabetes, and if you believe we are stronger together, as an army of innovators and investors with a single health moonshot objective, we want to partner. Investors and partners interested in collaborating on StartUp Health’s Diabetes Moonshot can email us at moonshots@startuphealth.com.
About StartUp Health
StartUp Health is investing in and building a global army of Health Transformers collaborating to achieve health moonshots — from ending cancer and curing disease to delivering quality care to everyone in the world. StartUp Health is backed by world-class investors including Steve Case, Mark Cuban, Esther Dyson, Brad Feld, Lee Shapiro, Glen Tullman, Advocate Aurora Health, Chiesi, Guidewell, Kaiser Permanente, Masimo, Novartis, Otsuka, and Ping An.
Since 2011, StartUp Health has invested in 400 health innovation companies across 27 countries. Select investments and exits include Nightingale Health (Nasdaq Helsinki), Doctor.com (acquired by Press Ganey), Conversa Health (acquired by AmWell), RespondWell (acquired by Zimmer Biomet), wayForward (acquired by Dario Health), Babyscripts, Cala Health, Cityblock Health, Devoted Health, Quit Genius, and Virta Health. Learn more at http://www.startuphealth.com.
Investors: Learn how you can invest in Health Moonshots through StartUp Health’s impact fund.
Digital health entrepreneur? Don’t make the journey alone. Learn more about the StartUp Health Community and how StartUp Health invests.
Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.
Follow us on social media for daily updates on Health Transformers: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
