DigitalHealth InvestorTalk Show

Chris Gallagher, cardiologist, healthcare executive, and Teos Health founder, joins digital health strategist Steven Wardell to explore telehealth’s next chapter. They discuss hospital budget pressures, healthcare’s productivity crisis, virtual ICUs, agentic clinics, home sensors, AI-powered workflows, and the investment forces reshaping digital health. They also examine consolidation, privacy scrutiny, GLP-1 telehealth, consumer wellness, and the uncertain AI market.

This event is co-hosted with Boston Health Innovation Night and AgeTech Boston.Our Guest of Honor, Kate Brigham, founder of AgeTech Boston, will make opening remarks on the theme of "What's Next in AgeTech."Thur. Sept. 17, 2026 at the Liberty Hotel in Boston (the Panopticon).

In healthcare, the software that people use is now fighting the AI underneath it for the same prize: the customer, the data, and the future.The next decade of competitive advantage will be decided by who controls the software layer between people and AI. Most companies haven’t noticed that the fight has started.This show draws on the argument: when software disappears into intent, advantage shifts to whoever owns the defaults, the memory, and the trust.For thirty years technology shifts have reshaped who wins. This time, the shift is different. AI agents don’t wait to be asked. They anticipate, orchestrate, and act. When software disappears into intent, the old questions stop mattering. Which app? Which vendor? Which features? Wrong questions. The real question is who owns the defaults, the memory, and the trust.In this show we’ll look at:The healthcare data arenas like EMR data, clinical trial data, and patient reported dataThe strategies of the AI hyperscalers versus the human-facing software layerHow this struggle will play out, who wins, and who loses.And we’ll take your questions.Harry Glorikian is a General Partner at Scientia Ventures and a Research Affiliate at the MIT Media Lab, where his work focuses on how AI rewrites competitive strategy and governance for lasting advantage. For more than three decades he has built, invested in, and advised companies at the convergence of healthcare, life sciences, and data-driven technology. His new book, The Invisible Interface: How AI Turns Intentions into Actions - and Who Wins (foreword by Don Norman), maps exactly this fight.Steven Wardell is the Managing Partner of Wardell Advisors, a consulting firm focused on growth, fundraising, and strategic alternatives for digital health companies. He is the host of DigitalHealth InvestorTalk and the author of The Future of Digital Health. Follow for digital health insights at X.com/StevenWardell.Follow on Eventbrite to hear about new events and live shows: StevenWardell.EventBrite.com.Subscribe to the podcast!Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digitalhealth-investortalk-show/id1739850633Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/42dV5Wnag97l2rtIDpxmlJ

Pharmaceutical manufacturers spend more than $40B annually on advertising and promotion, patient services, and Hubs. Only about 3% of Americans are even aware they offer resources like co-pay assistance and patient support programs. Little surprise then that between 20% to 30% of prescriptions are never filled.Emerging AI-powered advocates are now available 24/7 to patients and healthcare providers via the phone, SMS, and web, significantly reducing friction and streamlining the path to therapy. Imagine patient journeys orchestrated by personal concerges that canAnswer any medication-related questionVerify insurance benefits, both Rx and medicalFind and schedule doctor appointmentsTrack down prior authorizationsAutonomously enroll patients in affordability programsThat doesn't just translate into higher levels of engagement, but it also results in higher levels of medication compliance and suppports better condition management through longer-term adherence. And it's producing more informed patients -- another step toward healthcare consumerism.The patient journey is often frustrating to patients who have difficulties using benefits and staying on therapy. AI changes that. In this show we'll look at the new age promised by AI, when a patient concierge becomes smart and often free:Navigating the patient to the right benefitsGetting the patient on the right therapy and keeping them adherentSolving the frictions of the healthcare system.And we’ll answer your questions.Sage Khanuja is a Seattle Inno Under 25 honoree as well as the co-founder and President of The RXAssistant (therxassistant.com). Prior to launching the company in 2024, he founded and sold Spira, a no-code telehealth solution, to Galileo.Steven Wardell is the Managing Partner of Wardell Advisors, a consulting firm focused on growth, fundraising, and strategic alternatives for digital health companies. He is the host of DigitalHealth InvestorTalk and the author of The Future of Digital Health. Follow for digital health insights at X.com/StevenWardell.Follow on Eventbrite to hear about new events and live shows: StevenWardell.EventBrite.com.Subscribe to the podcast!Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digitalhealth-investortalk-show/id1739850633Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/42dV5Wnag97l2rtIDpxmlJ

Hormones, Biomarkers, and the End of Annual Lab Work: Empowered consumers monitor hormone levels & more from home to optimize their health.Health tracking used to mean episodic visits to the clinician, followed by tests to rule out what could be wrong. But today, a growing range of at-home monitoring tools, more convenient and affordable than ever, lets consumers track their hormone levels and other key biomarkers continuously, moving from ruling out illness to actively optimizing their health and vitality.In this show we’ll look at:The new paradigm of consumer home testing and empowerment and what is enabling it.Tests that are becoming more available and how they can support your health and wellnessA deep dive on hormones including hormone monitoring, hormone replacement therapy, and options for perimenopausal women.Why hormones are the missing data layer in longevity, and what continuous monitoring could reveal that annual lab work cannot.Shilpi Gupta is the founder and CEO of Qyn Labs, a hormone-health company developing at-home, real-time hormone monitoring with a focus on helping women navigate transitions like perimenopause. Before founding Qyn, she helped scale Roomba from a $100M to a $1B business at iRobot and led robotics product development at Amazon.Steven Wardell is the Managing Partner of Wardell Advisors, a consulting firm focused on growth, fundraising, and strategic alternatives for digital health companies. He is the host of DigitalHealth InvestorTalk and the author of The Future of Digital Health. Follow for digital health insights at X.com/StevenWardell.Follow on Eventbrite to hear about new events and live shows: StevenWardell.EventBrite.com.Subscribe to the podcast!Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digitalhealth-investortalk-show/id1739850633Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/42dV5Wnag97l2rtIDpxmlJ

Marketing is about meeting customers' needs. But how do we do this with a changing landscape and what if the customer is an AI agent?The marketing landscape is changing dramatically. Customers may go to an AI chatbot for answers instead of a search engine, obseleting SEO and ads from vendors in one shot. And what if the customer you're really selling to is an AI agent?In this show we’ll look at:- What are modern AI SEO, AI search, and AI marketing?- How do you get your product into a chatbot's answer?- How do you get chosen by AI agents?And we’ll take your questions.Dale Bertrand is an SEO strategist and founder & CEO of Fire&Spark agency.Noah Goldfarb is the founder of the Digital Health Growth Mastermind and a director at Fire& Spark agency.Steven Wardell is the Managing Partner of Wardell Advisors, a consulting firm focused on growth, fundraising, and strategic alternatives for digital health companies. He is the host of DigitalHealth InvestorTalk and the author of The Future of Digital Health. Follow for digital health insights at X.com/StevenWardell.

Digital is a high-potential modality in therapeutics but 10 years later there are few hit products. What can we expect next?In this show we'll cover:Successes and challenges of Prescription Digital Therapeutics 1.0Will PDTs achieve parity with molecular therapeutics?What are the current enablers and blockers of better care through digital therapeutics?And we'll answer your questions.Eddie Martucci, PhD, is the CEO of Alterris Oncology, a cancer biotech company; Advisor and President (US) of ResilienceCare, a digital health company in oncology care; and was the founding CEO of Akili Interactive, the leading prescription digital therapeutics company. Eddie also serves as a venture advisor to Sofinnova Partners, is on the Program Advisory Board of the MD Anderson Cancer Center's Cancer Neuroscience Program, and advises select founder-led early-stage innovative startup companies through his consulting firm, Martucci Innovations. Eddie has been named a Business Insider 30 Under 40 in Healthcare, and in 2021 was featured as one of Newsweek's "America's 50 Greatest Disruptors."Steven Wardell is the Managing Partner of Wardell Advisors, a consulting firm focused on growth, fundraising, and strategic alternatives for digital health companies. He is the host of DigitalHealth InvestorTalk and the author of The Future of Digital Health. Follow for digital health insights at X.com/StevenWardell.Follow on Eventbrite to hear about new events and live shows: StevenWardell.EventBrite.com.Subscribe to the podcast!Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digitalhealth-investortalk-show/id1739850633Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/42dV5Wnag97l2rtIDpxmlJ

Lyle Berkowitz, founder and Executive Chairman of KeyCare and longtime digital health physician-entrepreneur. They explore Telehealth 2.0: integrated, Epic-based virtual care and how workflows, credentialing, and incentives must evolve. Conversations cover AI-enabled services, teleproctoring and remote coaching, investment and consolidation trends, and practical tools clinicians use today.

Chris Michalak, executive chairman and former CEO with deep experience in employer benefits and HR tech. They explore market maturation and why consolidation is unfolding now. Conversations cover AI as an accelerant, valuation pressures, buyer preferences for integrated suites, and which benefit categories and strategies drive value for self-insured employers.

The amount of healthcare data keeps growing. The tools we have keep improving, including new GenAI tools.But to truly drive better healthcare outcomes, we need to improve the agency of both patients in healthcare systems and of consumers at home.In this show we'll cover:- The new landscape of data and tools in healthcare- Extracting meaningful insight for care delivery- Using GenAI and digital tools to drive behavior change and improved healthAnd we'll answer your questions.David Shaywitz, MD, PhD, is Chief Medical Scientist at Lore Health.Steven Wardell is the Managing Partner of Wardell Advisors, a consulting firm focused on growth, fundraising, and strategic alternatives for digital health companies. He is the host of DigitalHealth InvestorTalk and the author of The Future of Digital Health. Follow for digital health insights at X.com/StevenWardell.