
Big Picture Medicine
The health entrepreneurship podcast — focusing on big picture stuff.
Interviews with health/biotech entrepreneurs and leaders having impact at scale. Health stuff a techbro/sis would find interesting. Think health meets the Tim Ferriss Show.
Get in touch: pod@musty.io
Latest episodes

Jun 29, 2021 • 26min
#061 The Joys of Fundraising — Cyndi Williams (CEO Quin)
Cyndi Williams is the Co-founder and CEO of Quin; a digital therapeutic for type 1 diabetes. The app provides personalised, data-led support for insulin dosing decisions, based on physiological and behavioural factors.
Quin have raised £3.6 million pounds to date.
We talk about the process of building Quin, the joys and tribulations of fundraising, crowdfunding and the life of a CEO. I hope you enjoy.
You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Jun 21, 2021 • 43min
#060 Open Source is the Future of Medicine — Dr Marcus Baw
Secrets, in Medicine, are a crime against humanity.
Dr Marcus Baw holds an unusual career as a GP, Emergency Physician and health hacker.
He makes a controversial claim: That we have an ethical duty to openly share our technological innovation — and anything short of this is a crime against humanity.
Links from Marcus
Digital Health Networks (CCIOs, CIOs, CSOs, Caldicott Guardians, Clinicians Who Code and more) discourse.digitalhealth.net
Open Health Hub - completely open discussion of all things open sourcey in healthcare https://openhealthhub.org/
My OSITOWFM blog https://medium.com/@marcus_baw/open-source-is-the-only-way-for-medicine-9e698de0447e
"Royal Colleges 3.0" https://marcus-baw.medium.com/royal-colleges-3-0-best-practice-as-code-7065bce821a7
Faculty of Clinical Informatics https://facultyofclinicalinformatics.org.uk/
RCGP Health Informatics Group (for GPs who are RCGP members only) - GP IT specialism https://hig.primary-care.org.uk
Chamberlen Forceps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstetrical_forceps#History
Me on Twitter https://twitter.com/marcus_baw
Marcus's Website: https://pacharanero.github.io
You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

May 3, 2021 • 36min
#059 Meritocracy — Prof Sir John Burn
Professor Sir John Burn is Professor of Clinical Genetics at Newcastle University, a Non-Executive Director of NHS England and Vice Chairman of QuantumDx.
His story is fascinating and slightly unusual — because he began life from humble beginnings in a small village in the North East of England.
We talk about meritocracy, how to be a showman and why business and clinical academia are really very similar.
I hope you enjoy.
You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Apr 25, 2021 • 36min
#058 BMJ Editor-in-Chief — Dr Fiona Godlee
What's the biggest existential threat to the BMJ?
Dr Fiona Godlee is the Editor-in-Chief of the British Medical Journal and is an Executive Director of the BMJ Company.
She trained as a General Physician in Cambridge and London, before joining the BMJ as an Editorial Registrar.
Dr Godlee is incredibly interesting and forthcoming with the realities of running a medical journal — we talk about how the BMJ is not just a medical journal but a societal intervention, existential threats to the BMJ, the future vision and what Dr Godlee’s learned about leadership on her journey.
You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Apr 20, 2021 • 46min
#057 Capturing 5% of Google Searches — Daniel Nathrath (CEO Ada Health)
How do you capitalise on a problem spanning 5% of Google searches?
Daniel Nathrath is the Co-founder and CEO of Ada Health; a self-assessment health app for patients.
Ada has 10 million users, 250,000 5-star ratings and they’ve raised just shy of $100M.
They’ve been backed by Philip Schindler (Google’s Chief Business Officer_ and William Tunstall-Pedoe; who created Amazon Alexa.
We discuss some of the details behind starting Ada and its initial reception from doctors, some of its successes and future direction and finally we talk about Daniel’s leadership philosophy and some of the things he’s learnt as Ada’s grown.
I hope you enjoy.
You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Apr 13, 2021 • 33min
#056 First Principles — Melissa Morris (CEO Lantum)
How do you save the NHS £1 billion?
Melissa Morris is founder and CEO of Lantum; a company aiming to save the NHS £1 billion in workforce costs.
She started her career as a McKinsey Management Consultant and has since raised over £20M and grown Lantum to 60 employees.
We talk about how she grew Lantum and got it adopted in the NHS, first principles, how to take advice, stress as a founder and I ask her about some dubious rumours I've heard about McKinsey.
I hope you enjoy.
You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Apr 7, 2021 • 50min
#055 Getting Punched in the Face — Adnan Iqbal (CEO Luma Health)
Founding a company is like getting punched in the face, a lot.
Adnan Iqbal is CEO and Co-Founder at Luma Health; a company which better connects patients and doctors. He’s raised over $30M and scaled to over 450 US health systems and clinics.
Adnan studied Biology at Berkeley, then did his masters at Cambridge before working at Genentech — a large US biotech company. He then went to the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and that’s when him and his co-founder Tashfeen Ekram (a medical doctor) started working on Luma.
This episode is littered with gems of advice from Adnan, and we spend a lot of time talking about the early days of Luma — and how he got those initial customers onboard. We also discuss some of his thinking and decision making as CEO, and what it’s like to be a Pakistani dude in Silicon Valley.
I hope you enjoy.
You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Mar 29, 2021 • 32min
#054 Becoming a Superconnector — Will Gibbs (Octopus Ventures)
How can you become a superconnector?
Will Gibbs leads the Future of Health team at Octopus Ventures; one of the largest Venture Capital firms in Europe — with over £1.3bn under management.
Will studied Classic Archaeology and Ancient History at Oxford, before trying his hand at pig farming and then becoming an investor at Octopus.
We talk about the pros and cons of being a doctorpreneur, being right when others are wrong and how to become a superconnector.
I hope you enjoy.
You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Mar 23, 2021 • 30min
#053 Chasing Failure — Dr Mala Mawkin (Cellen)
What does it mean to become addicted to failure?
Dr Mala Mawkin is a Doctor, Head of Market Development at Cellen and hosts the Royal Society of Medicine’s Digital Health Podcast.
She's also been featured on Forbes 30 under 30 and Vogue UK’s Top 10 Rising Female Stars — impressive — considering she graduated from Medical School just two years ago.
We talk about persistence, chasing failure, leaving Medicine and what it’s like as a woman in healthtech.
I hope you enjoy.
You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Mar 15, 2021 • 39min
#052 Digital Twins in Clinical Trials — Dr Charles Fisher (CEO Unlearn.ai)
How can you use digital twins for faster clinical trials requiring fewer patients?
Dr Charles Fisher is the CEO and Founder of Unlearn.ai — which uses digital twins to reduce the number of patients required in clinical trials.
In a clinical trial, you usually have a treatment group who receive the drug/treatment, and a control group who receive a placebo. This means that a large number of patients need to be given a placebo — a fake or dummy version of the treatment with no therapeutic effect.
But using generative machine learning models, you can create a digital twin — a digital copy of a patient which might be able to emulate what would have happened to that patient if they’d received a placebo.
The promise of this technology is faster clinical trials, requiring fewer patients and producing better evidence.
Charles completed his PhD in Biophysics at Harvard and has raised $17M to date for Unlearn.ai. We talk about digital twins, viewing clinical trials with a biophysics lens and some of the challenges in getting this technology adopted.
I hope you enjoy.
You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io