Raising Health

In this episode, Kurt Adams, CEO of Optum Financial, chats with Daisy Wolf, investment partner for a16z Bio + Health, and Marc Andrusko, investment partner for a16z focused on fintech, about Optum Financial, how consumers might interact with fintech while seeking care or participating in healthy behaviors, and what a fintech-integrated version of the healthcare experience could look like.Additional reading from us:Payvidors, Unbundled: Opportunities in Healthcare FintechHealthtech x Fintech’s Biggest Prize: The Financial Operating System for Healthcare  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Joe Lonsdale, founder of 8VC, discusses innovation, monopoly power in healthcare, and policy ideas for growth. Topics include shifting innovation trends, challenges in healthcare, pharmaceutical industry competition, FDA regulations, personal health strategies, and optimism in health supplements.

In this episode, Julie Yoo, general partner, and Jay Rughani, investment partner at a16z Bio + Health, talk to Kate Ryder, founder and CEO of Maven; Amanda Rees, cofounder and CEO of Bold Health; and Bill Porter, VP and GM, International, of Butterfly Network, about their B2C2B go-to-market motion.This episode was originally recorded in late 2021, but it's still really relevant to builders, especially those exploring the B2C2B go-to-market motion. We talked about B2C2B in-depth in the second chapter of our Digital Health Builders Founder's Playbooks, also available at: https://a16z.com/digital-health-builders/And finally, our last chapter of the Founder's Playbooks is coming soon, so hit subscribe and stay tuned! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Kevin Parker, cofounder and CEO of Cartography Biosciences, joins Jorge Conde, general partner at a16z Bio + Health, and Olivia Webb, editorial lead, to discuss immuno-oncology, current challenges in drug targeting, and the mechanisms Cartography and others are using to advance the field of immunotherapeutics. This episode dives deep into the science behind immuno-oncology — but you don't necessarily have to be a scientist to follow along. You'll never look at a smoothie the same way again. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Kristen Fortney, cofounder and CEO of BioAge, joins Vijay Pande, founding partner of a16z Bio + Health, and Olivia Webb, editorial lead, to discuss the biology of aging, how she started a company, and some fun things — like how long a hypothetical venture capitalist can expect to live.  Additional reading:Greg Egan, whose writing inspired Kristen, has a list of his books on his website Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Paul Keckley, the managing editor of the Keckley Report and a health policy expert, joins Julie Yoo, general partner at a16z, and Olivia Webb, editorial lead at a16z. Together, they talk about how payors and providers are reacting to changing tailwinds,  how employers are demanding more in today's market, the opportunities and challenges for startups in a consolidated industry, and what the next few years of health policy might bring. Additional reading:The Keckley Report Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jakob Uszkoreit and Vijay Pande discuss all things AI — from Jakob's time at Google Brain, to how humans (and computers) process language, to Inceptive’s belief in the promise of RNA, and how Jakob believes we’re entering inflection point territory. You can also find a full transcript of this episode on our website.Additional reading:Attention is All You NeedA Decomposable Attention Model for Natural Language Inference  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The last few months have seen dramatic—almost magical—applications of expert generative AI released to the public. (One of those applications, incidentally, was in editing the sound mix of this episode.)But what does this mean for healthcare and bio? Vijay Pande, founding partner of a16z Bio + Health, and Marc Andreessen, cofounder of a16z, sat down for a wide-ranging discussion on AI as an additive superpower…for healthcare as well as screenplays, music, and more.You can also watch the full episode on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@a16z. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From initial inspiration in a sci-fi novel to the current state of “designing biology” in cultivated meat, SCiFi Foods cofounder and CEO Joshua March chats with Bio + Health general partner Vijay Pande and editorial lead Olivia Webb about company building, developing and iterating in biology, and what the future of cultivated meat could be. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

AI is here...so why isn't it in every clinic? Eric Topol talks with a16z Bio + Health general partners Vijay Pande and Vineeta Agarwala and editorial lead Olivia Webb about what's taking so long, where AI can help patients and providers the most, what needs to happen to speed up adoption, and whether data or policy is more likely to be an obstacle. Eric has written extensively about AI in healthcare, including in his most recent book Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again. He also writes a Substack focused on Covid research, called Ground Truths, linked below.  Finally, as a marker of how AI and AI adoption has (and hasn't) changed over the last few years, check out Eric's 2019 interview with Vijay on the a16z Podcast, also linked below.Ground Truths - https://erictopol.substack.com/a16z Podcast: AI and Your Doctor, Today and Tomorrow - https://a16z.com/2019/06/13/ai-doctor-deep-medicine-topol/  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.