Reversing Diabetes With Sami Inkinen of Virta Health
Jan 4, 2022
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Sami Inkinen, a health entrepreneur, aims to reverse Type 2 diabetes in 100 million people by 2025. He explores the effectiveness of nutrition in reversing diabetes and shares the success of his program. The episode also sheds light on fundraising, the challenges of reversing diabetes, and the importance of embracing the future as a CEO.
Verda aims to reverse Type 2 diabetes by providing personalized nutrition and care, delivering sustained long-term results and showing high patient retention rates.
Sami Inkenen emphasizes the importance of having a deep, unexplainable reason for starting a company, focusing on critical aspects, taking risks, and building a support network for personal and professional growth.
Deep dives
Reversing Type 2 Diabetes: A Health Moonshot
Sami Inkenen, CEO and founder of Verda, aims to reverse Type 2 diabetes in 100 million people by 2025. The current approach to Type 2 diabetes is focused on managing the disease with medications, but Verda's mission is to reverse it completely through personalized nutrition and care. With a combination of nutritional manipulation and individualized support delivered via telemedicine, Verda aims to provide sustained long-term results and has shown high patient retention rates. While initially met with skepticism, the idea of reversing Type 2 diabetes is gaining acceptance, with the American Diabetes Association and diabetes scientists publishing a consensus paper on the possibility. Verda is focused on scaling its impact by expanding its reach to employers, health plans, and government organizations, as well as developing new indications and continuously improving patient outcomes through its platform.
Lessons from Trulia and Starting Verda
Sami Inkenen's experience as a co-founder of Trulia, a multi-billion dollar real estate company, shaped his approach to starting Verda. He learned the importance of having a deep, unexplainable reason for starting a company beyond monetary gain. Inkenen emphasizes the need to focus on the big rocks, the critical aspects of building a company, and effectively separating them from smaller tasks to avoid feeling overwhelmed. He also highlights the value of taking risks and being willing to embrace discomfort, as he learned from his epic rowing journey from California to Hawaii and his willingness to push boundaries in entrepreneurship. Inkenen encourages CEOs and founders to have hobbies or interests outside of their businesses and to build a trusted support network for personal and professional growth.
Scaling Verda and Achieving Long-Term Results
For Verda, scaling means expanding its reach to new channels and increasing its commercial presence with employers, health plans, and government organizations. The company offers remote care through telemedicine, eliminating the need for physical offices. Verda places a strong emphasis on delivering sustained long-term results, with patient retention rates of 83% at one year and 74% at two years. The focus is on providing personalized nutrition and individualized support to reverse type 2 diabetes while continuously improving patient delight, outcomes, and efficiency. Verda is also exploring new indications through clinical trials to expand its impact beyond type 2 diabetes.
The Vision for Diabetes Reversal
Sami Inkenen envisions a future where the primary goal of type 2 diabetes care is the reversal or remission of the disease. He believes that reversing type 2 diabetes is inevitable, and it makes economic and ethical sense to focus on this goal. While the current growth rate of type 2 diabetes is alarming, Inkenen believes that once the growth curve flattens and the number of cases stabilizes, it will be a cause for celebration. Verda's mission is to scale its impact and contribute to the ultimate vision of reversing type 2 diabetes in millions of people worldwide.
Join us in Miami Beach from March 6-9, 2022, for StartUp Health @ ViVE to meet Health Transformers: startuphealth.com/vive
The numbers surrounding Type 2 diabetes are staggering. The WHO puts the number north of 400 million people globally, and it’s just getting worse. Health experts agree that Type 2 diabetes can largely be managed by a combination of nutrition, exercise, and medication. But what if it could be reversed completely? That’s the claim, and the health moonshot, of our guest today, Sami Inkinen, CEO and Founder of Virta, which StartUp Health backed in 2020. Specifically, Inkinen and his team want to reverse Type 2 diabetes in 100 million people by 2025.
Before Virta, Inkinen disrupted the real estate industry by co-founding Trulia, which he sold to Zillow for $2.5B. Now with Virta, he’s raised more than $350M to date, giving him the capital needed to take a great idea and scale it in unprecedented ways.
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Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
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