The Pulse by Wharton Digital Health

Our guest on this episode is Dr. Ashwini Zenooz (“Ash”), CEO of Commure, a platform that enables health systems, digital health companies, and 3rd party developers to more quickly build interoperable data-driven products for healthcare. Their goal is to facilitate new clinical and operational workflows that leverage a health system’s data infrastructure to improve the patient experience, perform better in value-based arrangements, and expand access to care. Commure recently closed a $500 million fundraise across two rounds led by Human Capital and Greenoaks Capital, and received its initial backing from General Catalyst.

In this episode, we sat down with April Koh, the CEO and founder of Spring Health, a comprehensive mental health benefit for employers. April is currently the youngest female to run a unicorn company. We discussed: Spring Health’s focus on providing precision mental healthcare through its proprietary predictive algorithms and science-backed methodology of collecting patient self-reported data The critical role data plays in improving the accuracy of Spring Health’s predictive algorithms, continuously upgrading customized member experiences, and helping clinicians enhance the efficacy of their care Upcoming plans to explore value-based payment models and investments for international expansion, family care offerings, and harmonizing workplace performance with employee work / life balance The challenges and opportunities of starting a company as a young woman of color, and how April’s entrepreneurial journey led her to be the youngest female running a unicorn company

In this episode, we interview Chris Severn, the Co-Founder and CEO of Turquoise Health, a company working to bring real price transparency to healthcare. With recent and upcoming waves in pricing legislation, combined with its fundraise led by a16z earlier this year, Turquoise is tackling the transparency problem from several angles by creating new tools for patients, payers, and providers.

In this episode, we sat down with Karan Singh, Co-Founder & COO of Ginger, now Headspace Health, through a merger with Headspace that was announced in August, 2021. Headspace Health is the world’s leading provider of mental health and wellbeing solutions. We discussed: Ginger’s mission to address mental healthcare gaps by creating a comprehensive digital on-demand solution offering full stack mental health services at an affordable rate Potential reforms to make mental healthcare more accessible through reimbursement parity and interstate licensing The strategic rationale behind merging Ginger and Headspace into Headspace Health and what this means for users

In this episode, we interview Fay Rotenberg, CEO of Firefly Health. We chat about her experience joining Firefly Health in 2017, discussing how what started as a virtual-first primary care offering has developed into a solution that will help consumers get, find, and pay for care. Firefly Health is trying to deliver concierge medicine at scale. They began with a virtual-first primary care offering that used an innovative leveraged care team approach to care for and build trust with their patient population, which is primarily chronically ill, commercially-insured individuals. As they grew, they added in a virtual specialty network and a set of “last mile care delivery” partners to extend their network of physicians to cover more of the care their patient’s needed. Now, after a $40M Series B raise in April of this year, led by andreessen horowitz, they are launching their own health insurance product, targeting smaller/ mid-market employers and allowing them to pool risk to share in the savings achieved by the Firefly model.

In this episode, we interview the GoodRx co-founder and CEO, Doug Hirsch. We chat about his experience founding GoodRx, covering topics ranging from a time when his father literally knocked on pharmacy doors in NYC to get drug prices to their recent public offering. GoodRx seeks to expand access and affordability for prescription drugs. To do this, they process ~200 billion daily cash-pay price points for generic drugs from pharmacies, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), and retailers to then help a consumer choose the right way for them to get access to the medication they need. As they’ve continued to grow, they’re also sought new ways to extend their impact, including through a telehealth offering to actually write prescriptions as well as products surrounding branded drugs.

In this episode, we interview  Michelle Carnahan, President of Thirty Madison. We discuss Michelle’s pivot from pharmaceutical executive to leader of a health tech unicorn and what that means for Thirty Madison going forward. Thirty Madison’s mission is to be a human-first healthcare company delivering specialized care and treatment to everyone. They recently completed a $140M Series C raise led by HealthQuest Capital. They join Maveron and Polaris Partners as lead investors in Thirty Madison.

Saeju Jeong, Co-Founder and CEO of Noom, discusses the company's mission to promote behavior change for healthier lives. They explore Noom's evolution from a fitness app to a weight loss platform. The chapter also highlights scaling challenges and the importance of technology in coaching. Additionally, they discuss Noom's plans for scaling and expanding into new markets and the skill sets of MBAs.

In this episode, we chatted with Vijay Patel, Co-Founder and Partner at CVS Health Ventures, a $100M fund dedicated to investing and partnering with high-potential health technology startups aimed at building towards CVS’ vision of creating more consumer-centric care. We discussed: The establishment of CVS Health Ventures as a fund dedicated to digital health opportunities, creating the potential for longer-term strategic actions and extended time horizons for realizing investment payoff The mandate of CVS Health Ventures to not only invest in but also partner with high-potential, early-stage digital health companies to forward CVS Health’s strategic goals of making health care more affordable and accessible for consumers Leaning into CVS Health’s role as a trusted health care provider in communities by continuing to partner with local and national organizations to expand health care access Investing in behavioral health, diagnostics, and virtual care delivery assets and capabilities - trends accelerated by COVID-19 and likely to persist

In this episode, we interview Jonathan Bush, the founder and CEO of Zus Health. We discuss his broad vision for Zus as well as some of his learnings from founding and leading athenahealth and from serving as the Executive Chairman of Firefly Health. Zus Health is seeking to enable the new wave of digital-first provider organizations by building a unified patient record and a toolkit with which these organizations can build better patient relationship management tools and provider workflows. Zus Health completed a $34M Series A raise led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from F-Prime Capital and Maverick Ventures.