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Live From the StartUp Health Festival @ ViVE 2022 · StartUp Health NOW Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to StartUp Health NOW, the podcast where we celebrate the entrepreneurs and innovators who are reimagining the future of health.
• 0:07
  Uh, I'm Logan Plastzer, and this is a special edition of our podcast from the floor of the StartUp Health Festival taking place at ViVE in Miami. And I'm here for this episode with my colleague, Rachel Freeman.
• 0:21
  [laughs] Hi. [laughs] Glad to have you here. Thanks for having me. Excited to talk, uh, for this live episode about the trends and the news that we're seeing here on the floor- Yeah... of the festival. Yep.
• 0:34
  So you've been interviewing a lot of our Health Transformers. Um, is there any, like, interesting news that you've been hearing of? What are some things that are coming? What are companies up to? Anything like that?
• 0:46
  It's been very, it's been very cool to see over the last day, uh, I had the privilege of getting to do about 26 interviews yesterday with Health Transformers and folks who are in the industry.
• 0:57
  And, uh, a few of them came out with some, uh, with some news yesterday, which was very cool. Probably the biggest one was Jennifer Schneider, Dr.
• 1:07
  Jennifer Schneider, who is the, uh, former president and, um, chief medical officer of Livongo. She was part of the team that guided that company through the largest health tech IPO in history.
• 1:22
  Uh, merged with Teladoc, some people call it Teladongo. [laughs] Uh, valued the two companies together. Uh, I think it was 18 billion. I'm just pulling that, uh, out of the back of my head.
• 1:34
  But, um, extremely, uh, big deal that she helped guide them through. Hmm. So just a formative time for her. And then she left the company, and she took some time off.
• 1:44
  And just yesterday, or, uh, maybe just this week, announced her next venture, which everyone's been waiting to hear. And so she is launching and heading up a company called Homeward. Okay.
• 1:56
  Which is, uh, really focusing on bringing care, kind of last mile health, to rural populations. Okay.
• 2:04
  And so recognizing that something like 23%, 25%, um, of folks in the United States, uh, live in, in these sort of low access areas- Yeah... where they can't get primary care, they can't get what they need.
• 2:18
  So Homeward has launched. Dr. Schneider, uh, really a luminary in the industry, is heading this up, so everyone's gonna be watching what she's doing. No word on what they're doing yet.
• 2:30
  [laughs] It's just the, it's, it's just new. It's new. It's very new. Yeah. Uh, but Homeward is, is happening. Cool. The other thing that was exciting- [clears throat] Sorry...
• 2:40
  maybe a little bit smaller in terms of, you know, finances and magnitude, was that our company, uh, Wellways, our company, a company in the StartUp Health portfolio called Wellways, um, under CEO Alex Ness.
• 2:55
  Um, they have been working for seven years on this technology that really makes it easier to, uh, detect breast cancer early, and this is something that's really personal and, um, something that the founder's really passionate about.
• 3:09
  A lot of breast cancer in his family. And he developed this way using heat technology, uh, to really cheaply allow women to pre-screen themselves. Oh.
• 3:21
  And his passion is to, is to make sort of pre-screening super accessible, not just in, in the United States, but really, um, he has a passion for Latin America. And so- Okay...
• 3:33
  um, there's this idea of working with governments and getting- Mm-hmm... this sort of cheap pre-screening tool in the hands of millions of women, um, so that if they sort of show that they have a higher risk- Yep...
• 3:47
  they can come in, get a mammogram, and- That's amazing... get the care they need. Yeah. Um- I'd say, I'd say that's, that, those, those are the two news items that jump out to me from yesterday. Yep.
• 3:58
  Lots of other amazing things happening, but that device called CellBrea that, uh, was being released into the world this month after seven years of development. That's a, that's an accomplishment for them.
• 4:12
  Um, they, they deserve some celebration this week. [laughs] Yes. Some CellBrea celebration. Oh, yeah. Um, so like we said, you talked to a lot of people. Have you noticed any trends? Anything that sticks out to you?
• 4:25
  Yeah. You know, talking to folks, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of buzzwords- Yep... flow around. [laughs] A lot of industry terms. Uh, part of my job interviewing them is to try to get beyond those buzzwords.
• 4:40
  Mm-hmm. And, you know, one of the areas we dug into was this idea of getting beyond the hype when talking about health equity. Oh. And health equity, uh, has become a top level priority for a lot of companies.
• 4:54
  But I talked to InOn Health, KP Uppala, the CEO of InOn Health, and he has been a, uh, a forerunner in talking about health equity for years, and has just been, uh, appointed to a chairman position in Colorado, talking about digital health and health equity, so, so really platformed for this issue.
• 5:15
  And yet he brought up this issue of, uh, getting beyond the hype and figuring out, okay, what is the, what, what's the value we're really bringing- Mm... to, um, to diverse communities, to minority communities. Yep.
• 5:28
  And just trying to, trying to bridge that gap. You know, we didn't really get into exactly how that happens, but kind of has to start with the conversation of- Yeah...
• 5:36
  get, getting beyond the buzzwords and beyond the hype and saying, "What value are we bringing?" And also, where are we investing? Mm.
• 5:45
  So there's this idea that it's one thing to talk about it, it's another thing to really put your money where your mouth is. Yeah. And unless you're willing to put some money in up front, um, it's not gonna happen. Yeah.
• 5:59
  What, what I mean is-If you just wait until health equity pr- pr- uh, programs or projects are incredibly profitable, if you wait till then to invest- Mm...
• 6:10
  then you're not gonna be sort of pushing the envelope and, and really helping. Yeah. You'd just be following the money. Ex- exactly. So you gotta invest early. Yeah.
• 6:18
  Um, I feel like so many of our companies fall under the moonshot of, like, access to care. Mm-hmm. But I think a big question is, like, what does that look like actually being, like, lived out in these companies?
• 6:29
  Exactly. And getting beyond the, "We want to provide care for everyone." What does that look like, especially in your specific niche? So- Exactly... that's amazing. Exactly.
• 6:39
  You know, another trend that spoke to me was this idea that there's a lot of amazing technology coming out and...
• 6:46
  but sometimes health access and m- and improving outcomes is about, um, simple steps and making those simple moves, um, more accessible.
• 6:59
  Sort, sort of, uh, h- helping folks understand sort of the basic steps they can, they can do- Mm... for their health.
• 7:05
  And what, what comes to mind is a company called Vida Health, and they, uh, they work with Medicaid and Medicare populations, sort of high-risk populations, a lot of low-income populations that have multiple chronic diseases.
• 7:20
  And we could come into to these populations with, you know, sort of the best in technology, but really what they need, what, what these groups need is a few basic steps forward. It can make a huge difference. Yeah.
• 7:35
  So what Vida Health does is they send everybody a little kit that has a blood pressure cuff, a Bluetooth bl- blood pressure, and a Bluetooth scale, and it's all connected to an iPhone.
• 7:46
  The iPhone is already charged- Mm... with hot keys that just say, you know, "Use my scale." It's all prepackaged. There's a button that says, "Call my coach."
• 7:55
  And basically, the whole process of, of, of being compliant with a basic health plan is made incredibly simple. Yeah. It's really not about the technology. Yeah.
• 8:04
  We've had those scales and the iPhone, uh, available, but nobody kind of packaged it in a way that was simple. Mm. And because of that, I think they have something like an 83% compliance rate.
• 8:15
  Like, people use it- Yeah... every day, and it has huge benefits. Like, just having somebody who's on...
• 8:23
  who has Type 2 diabetes, just getting them to check, you know, their weight and, and trend their health and their blood pressure on a regular basis, like, that alone is this huge- Yeah... help.
• 8:34
  Um, and it doesn't require some huge technology. Yeah. It's the application of it. Yeah. So many things in healthcare are hard, you know, especially for people who don't have, you know, that immediate access.
• 8:46
  So it's like, let's just eliminate, like, that initial barrier of, how can I actually get through the door of, like, getting healthcare- Yeah... that I need? So.
• 8:54
  A lot of companies are also thinking about language and just the way we communicate. Um, like, let's not talk... I, I, talking to Romy Antoine from One Stop Wellness. Mm.
• 9:05
  He does, uh, employee wellness programs, and he was talking about, uh, health literacy and how we just don't e- you know, we need to stop using $10 words for health w- when we can use $5 words- Mm...
• 9:18
  and communicate just as clearly. You know? Yeah.
• 9:20
  Why, why say hypertension when you're talking to a pop- population when you could say, you know, high blood pressure and, and really help people understand what's going on? Yeah.
• 9:29
  So the simplicity of just speaking clearly, you know, sort of the age-old, um, challenge of just being clear and concise- Yeah. [laughs]... turns out to be sometimes the best medicine, the best technology. Yeah.
• 9:45
  Not to say there aren't really cool technologies out there. Um, this sort of stands in contrast to my interview with, um, Sasha Heppell from SmartTab. Mm. Did you see SmartTab? I did. You did? Okay. Yes.
• 10:00
  So SmartTab, uh, leader in ingestible tech. Yes. Kinda stands out. No one else has- [clears throat]... tech pills here. Yeah. Right? Yeah. [laughs] It's a little scar- it's a little scary looking right now- Yeah...
• 10:11
  just because it's kinda big, but it's gonna get smaller.
• 10:14
  But this idea that, that scientists are developing, um, pills that can be tracked through your body and deploy medicine at exactly the right moment, which allows you to
• 10:30
  take less medicine because it's targeted. Yeah. Fewer side effects. Um, what Sasha was telling me yesterday is that, uh, there's millions of people who have to inject themselves with a needle once a- Mm...
• 10:43
  once a week with some sort of biologic, um, medicine, and they're coming up with a way to avoid that through a pill.
• 10:50
  And, uh, you know, it's just a, a tough road for folks who have to, you know, use a needle on a weekly basis. Yeah.
• 10:58
  So that's crazy because what they're developing, Sasha thinks that this next decade is gonna be the decade of the ingestible technology 'cause there's so much they can do with it.
• 11:07
  But what's interesting is that it's taken so long to develop. Mm. So- To get it right. To get it right.
• 11:14
  So s- like I was saying before, some things in health tech are things we can kind of, um, riff on and k- they can evolve every year, and some things take a decade. Mm. You know?
• 11:27
  A- and, um, uh, that people just have to invest and do the, do the work and take the time- Yeah... to do it. Yeah. Sometimes...
• 11:33
  Like, we have a lot of companies who do, like, really incredible, complex things, like SmartTab. Always has, has spent seven years, um, creating the pre-screening.
• 11:42
  But, like, sometimes what's also great is conquering the basics of healthcare for people, so. Did you hear about Lazaro Med? No. So sort of rounding this out, talking about new technology, this really excited me.
• 11:55
  Um, Lazaro Med-Uh, it seems niche at first when you think about it, but then you realize that it's, it's really game changing. So, uh, apparently there are millions of people suffering from really- Mm...
• 12:06
  a collapsed airway. So- Mm... you know, a- as you age, the cartilage, uh, in your air- in your esophagus, uh, sorry, your trachea, uh, starts to collapse, and you begin to have trouble breathing.
• 12:19
  And so millions of people have been told as they get older that they are just, you know, they have chronic cough or they have COPD, when really they're having this, this thing called TBM- Mm...
• 12:30
  and it is, um, this sort of collapsed airway. And up until now, there was no real cure. People just kind of lost the ability to breathe over time, and it was really traumatic. And this guy, um, uh, Dr.
• 12:46
  Lazaro, he cli- came up with this way to perform a surgery that really kind of, um, they, they say scaffolds your airway. Yep.
• 12:56
  And he's able to go in laparos- uh, you know, robotically, so it's a, it's a lo- it's a less invasive surgery. Right.
• 13:02
  And he's able to, um, uh, you know, yeah, they, they say scaffold the airway and g- give people back their trachea. Mm. And, um, [clears throat] uh, really people come in unable to breathe, and they walk out- Yeah...
• 13:17
  with the ability to breathe, and it's, it's almost miraculous. Yeah. I mean, I'm from New York. The idea of scaffolding an airway makes a lot of sense to me, so [laughs] Yeah.
• 13:27
  So that is, again, is a technology that is, has taken years to develop, and yet when it finally is deployed at scale, and they're, they're working with some of the top institutions in the world to develop the technology around it and then also the education, 'cause they gotta teach- Mm...
• 13:43
  all the surgeons in the world.
• 13:45
  I think something like this, which could apply to s- to millions of people as they age and will give them, you know, the breath of life back, could become something almost like LASIK, you know? Mm-hmm.
• 13:56
  Where before we thought, "Oh, you just lost your eyesight," and now LASIK seems almost like a miracle, right? Yeah. And, and it, it's happening constantly for people. Right. Like, it's so common now.
• 14:05
  It's, uh, you know, every- the people have learned how to do it. They've gotten really good at it. And this, I think this is kind of one of those surgeries. Mm-hmm. Or like a total hip replacement.
• 14:14
  Like, we've gotten- Yeah... so good at it that, you know, the, the risks have gone down. It's accessible. Yep. So this is one of those things. So Lazaro Med is doing that for this TBM, uh, surgery.
• 14:25
  And, you know, maybe 10 years ago that, you know, chronic cough, you know, lo- loss of air, the sort of undiagnosed TBM will be a thing of the past. Yeah. Amazing. [laughs] Yeah.
• 14:40
  So here we are, Tuesday morning, heading into the second day- Yep... of the StartUp Health Festival at Vive. A lot of big stuff coming on, but, uh, that's kind of, those are my takeaways from yesterday. Yeah.
• 14:53
  I- Any final thoughts from you? [laughs] Let me think about 'em. [laughs] Let me get to 'em. It's gonna be a big day. We're gonna have people in the StartUp Health studio. We're gonna have a main stage program. Yes.
• 15:06
  And lots of stuff going on at the StartUp Health Pavilion. Yeah.
• 15:09
  We're, I mean, honestly, our team is trying to get people on stages, in front of cameras to get just, like, the most amount of information out about our, like, StartUp Health companies as possible while we're here, so it's insane.
• 15:20
  It's a lot going on. Yeah, you're gonna be able to watch everything we've recorded here on our YouTube channel, youtube.com/startuphealth, and we'll be sending it out on our, in our, uh, email newsletter.
• 15:32
  So catch that, and thanks for joining us.