Digital Health Disruptors Ranjani Rangan

Neil Littman is the CEO of Bioverge and one of the driving forces behind its mission to democratize healthcare venture capital, making it more accessible, transparent, and affordable to a wider audience. His journey began with a personal quest to diversify his investment portfolio beyond the public markets, leading to the founding of Bioverge. However, the seeds of his passion for healthcare innovation were planted years earlier when he witnessed the groundbreaking cure of a young girl named Evie from a previously incurable genetic disease. Prior to Bioverge, Neil played pivotal roles at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), managing multimillion-dollar funds and spearheading investments in revolutionary clinical trials spanning cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and rare genetic disorders. 
In Today’s Episode with Neil Littman, We Discuss:
Neil's formative years and how they served as a blueprint for his career path
[2:41] What did the young Neil Littman's ambitions look like?
[3:30] What was Neil’s pivotal moment that changed his career trajectory to biotech?  
    2. What it is like to work for a philanthropy organization in Biotech  
[6:52] How did Neil come across CIRM and secure impressive business development opportunities 
[7:53] What did Neil take away from his encounter with Evie, a girl born with SCID? What impact did they have with the technology they were funding?
[9:44] How did Evie's story inspire Neil to start Bioverge? What is Neil's vision for biotech?
 
How to overcome the entrepreneurial startup hinges
[11:17] What was Neil's biggest challenge in the early stages of building Bioverge? How did Neil overcome them?
 
What holds promise in Biotech investments for 2024
[14:11] What does Neil perceive as the game changer in seed investing? What investors cannot afford to overlook?
[18:53] How did Neil identify start-up investment opportunities for significant return?
[20:32] Why does Neil believe the key to finding top-tier investment opportunities is Founder Market Fit?
[21:42] Why Neil emphasizes that start-ups should view things from the perspective and expectations of their investors? 
 
What Lessons can be drawn from startup setbacks and success
[25:53] What are Neil’s biggest lessons on transparency and communication from a failed start-up?
[28:08] What advice does Neil give to start-ups and aspiring entrepreneurs before approaching investors?
[29:05] How does Neil support the success of the companies they invest in at Bioverge?
 
Stay tuned for part 2 and get more insights into the promising trends shaping the biotech industry and the opportunities it presents for the industry and entrepreneurs alike.

We delve into the dynamic world of Dr. Kyra Bobinet, an international expert in healthcare innovation and best-selling author of "Well Designed Life." The episode takes a deep dive into Dr. Bobinet's AI digital health app, Fresh Tri, reshaping the behavior change landscape.
Join us as we explore cutting-edge neuroscience insights, spotlighting the Habenula's role in behavior control and its impact on health tech. Dr. Bobinet's unconventional startup journey with Walmart offers a fresh perspective for entrepreneurs, steering away from traditional venture capital models.
Unravel the roots of her success, deeply tied to her Ojibwe, Lakota, and Czech heritage. Discover the transformative power of personal experiences and compassion in fueling entrepreneurial drive. 
Engage in a candid conversation about resilience, determination, and the exciting release of her upcoming book, "Unstoppable Brain." 
 

Key Takeaways:
[00:52] Introducing today’s guest and topic.
[03:03] The crucial role of the Habenula & How Fresh Tri prevents failure.
[05:57] How Fresh Tri helps people overcome obesity and weight loss struggles.
[10:38] Dr. Bobinet’s experience overcoming fast food addiction, binging, and failure.
[12:50] How childhood trauma impacts social identity, health outcomes, & resilience.
[16:57] How Dr. Bobinet’s childhood trauma shaped her mission and vision.
[18:08] The moment that sparked her to transition from medical school to public health entrepreneurship.
[22:07] Dr. Bobinet’s startup journey with Walmart & How this collaboration enhances her app’s visibility/credibility.
[25:32] The Iterative Mindset Method: Fresh Tri’s strategies for behavior change.
[28:21] GLP-1 drugs for weight loss: Dr. Bobinet’s candid thoughts on Ozempic.
[29:46] What Dr. Bobinet looks for in prospective collaborations + Advice for digital health innovators.
[32:05] Top tips for designing apps for better health, life, and mindset.
[33:24] About Dr. Bobinet’s books + How to connect with her.
 
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Resources Mentioned:
Learn more about Fresh Tri
“Well Designed Life”  by Dr. Kyra Bobinet
“Unstoppable Brain” by Dr. Kyra Bobinet
Connect with our Host:Ranjani Rangan
Follow Digital Health Disruptors on your favourite platform:SpotifyApple Podcasts
 

 
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📣 Attention clinician entrepreneurs and technologists! Are you ready to revolutionize healthcare at the point of care? Discover the CharmHealth platform, a perfect ecosystem where technologists and clinician entrepreneurs connect, ideate, and thrive.
Our CharmHealth Innovation Challenge is a recurring competition and a platform for innovators, entrepreneurs and philanthropists in the digital health space to present their ideas, research and innovative health solutions.
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ABOUT CHARMHEALTH
🔸 A cloud-based Electronic Health Records​, Telehealth, Practice Management and Medical Billing solution that helps healthcare organizations ranging from large multi-speciality groups to small independent medical offices function efficiently.
🔸 To that effect, CharmHealth’s pricing is simple, unique and helps practices budget and manage the cost of software acquisition.
🔸 Charm's award-winning API platform integrates with a range of third party healthcare solutions, offering additional functionality to our users.
CharmHealth website

A Startup's Journey to Fixing a Broken System through Smarter Scheduling
Many parts of our healthcare system are broken. Can disrupting scheduling fix them?  
Clinicians are leaving the profession faster than ever, wards are poorly staffed, and burnout is rampant. Smarter scheduling, or rather anti-scheduling, is MeshAI’s antidote to many of those problems. This is the story of how they’re building their company and how they’re contributing to fixing the healthcare system in doing so.
We touch on many topics including: 
Why did they decide to disrupt scheduling? 
How do they know they’re building an effective solution?
How do they keep their company lean? 
MeshAI was founded by Professor Shahram Yousefi, PhD, PEng, an engineer turned healthcare innovator. With a unique background of fleeing war and a career spanning telecommunications to academia, Yousefi brings a distinctive perspective to tackling healthcare challenges.
 

What we discussed 
[00:00] Fact: clinicians are overworked 
[01:30] How do we solve clinician understaffing? 
[03:53] The mind behind MeshAI
[07:06] Shocking statistics: Why 900K nurses will QUIT !
[08:13] Stop calling healthcare professionals heroes.
[09:10] Overlooked method to solve clinician burnout 
[10:32] Why are clinicians overbooked? 
[12:24] To patent or not to patent 
[13:18] Scheduling and equity 
[14:29] Building MeshAI as a lean startup (and how their product evolved) 
[19:05] How MeshAI achieved product-market fit 
[21:43] Why your startup needs a clinician success team
[23:02] Disrupting medical scheduling  OR Building an anti-scheduler 
[25:09] Pricing strategy 
[26:50] Not integrating with EMRs (here’s why) 
[27:31] Are they building a feature or a product?
[29:37] Advice for digital health entrepreneurs + book recommendations 
4 Key Lessons For Digital Health Entrepreneurs From MeshAI’s Journey:
Involve healthcare professionals in your health-tech startup; position yourself as a partner, not a vendor. Mesh AI is not just built for healthcare professionals; it's built with them. The company is funded by doctors who believe in the solution's impact, and these professionals also serve on advisory boards and are integral to the product team. This direct involvement ensures the product meets the nuanced needs of its users.
You’ll know you have product-market-fit when your product is imperfect, but clients still come and stay. To achieve product-market-fit you must get comfortable with making mistakes, acknowledging them, and addressing them. To do that, you must actively seek and genuinely listen to feedback.
You don’t have to prioritize EMR integration. By building a product that is able to stand-alone from EMRs if necessary, you can iterate faster and more frequently. You’ll have to deal with less people, less processes, and less overall inefficiencies. 
Wear a 20 million market lens as you build your product. Find a solution that really makes a difference for 20 million THEN expand towards a 20 billion dollar market. To get traction early on, reach people, get them to support you, talk about you and become your ambassadors. Only then, will you be well positioned to capture a larger market share.
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Resources Mentioned:
Discover MeshAI
Mirror, Mirror 2021 Report 
Charm Health Challenge 
----more----
Book Recommendation: Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz
Book Recommendation: The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
 
Connect with Professor Shahram Yousefi: LinkedInConnect with Ranjani (Varadarajan) Rangan: LinkedIn
 
Follow Digital Health Disruptors on your favourite platform:SpotifyApple Podcasts
 

 
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📣 Attention clinician entrepreneurs and technologists! Are you ready to revolutionize healthcare at the point of care? Discover the CharmHealth platform, a perfect ecosystem where technologists and clinician entrepreneurs connect, id

In this mid-season reflection, Ranjani warmly welcomes listeners to the Digital Health Disruptors Podcast by CharmHealth. 
The episode highlights key innovators featured thus far, such as Dr. Art Wallace, whose personal experiences led to the development of a remote monitoring system leveraging AI to mitigate respiratory and cardiac emergencies. Additionally, insights from clinician entrepreneur Dr. Rachel Kuperman and Dr. Joshua Tamayo Sarver, VP of Innovation at Vituity & Inflect Health, enrich the discourse on innovation at the point of care and entrepreneurial journeys within healthcare.
Teasing the forthcoming episodes in 2024, Ranjani previews discussions with guests like Dr. Kyra Bobinet, CEO of Fresh Tri, diving into neuroscience-based health behavior change and embracing the Iterative mindset. Prof. Shahram Yousefi, co-founder of Mesh AI, shares his insights on transforming healthcare through seamless shift scheduling and the intersection of values and entrepreneurship in academia.The episode concludes by hinting at the upcoming interview with Dr. Divya Chander, exploring the future of medicine and neurotechnology, discussing devices capable of reading and writing the brain for diagnostic and therapeutic applications.
Credits: 
Dr. Kyra Bobinet - source: The Trauma Therapist Podcast
source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2sNlhCe78o


Spoken Segment: [SOUNDBITE: @ 9:31 “I was always curious about learned helplessness…powerful controller that has ever been found” 10:41]

Prof. Shahram Yousefi - source Delta: HealthTech Innovators Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1gWijtyLzg&t=1319s


Spoken Segment: [SOUNDBITE - @ 23:15 “ We are academics... they cannot be perfect 23:42]

Dr. Divya Chander : Source:  Digital Health and Biometrics: Hacking Humans at IEEE ISDPSM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX6r-t6KwU4&t=4696s


Spoken Segment: [SOUNDBITE: @- “26:37...27:07 “This idea that mind reading might take off is actually a real thing... predict dreaming during sleep”]

Get ready for an insightful journey ahead in the Digital Health Disruptors Podcast!
 

 
🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸
📣 Attention clinician entrepreneurs and technologists! Are you ready to revolutionize healthcare at the point of care? Discover the CharmHealth platform, a perfect ecosystem where technologists and clinician entrepreneurs connect, ideate, and thrive.
Our CharmHealth Innovation Challenge is a recurring competition and a platform for innovators, entrepreneurs and philanthropists in the digital health space to present their ideas, research and innovative health solutions.
🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸
 
ABOUT CHARMHEALTH
🔸 A cloud-based Electronic Health Records​, Telehealth, Practice Management and Medical Billing solution that helps healthcare organizations ranging from large multi-speciality groups to small independent medical offices function efficiently.
🔸 To that effect, CharmHealth’s pricing is simple, unique and helps practices budget and manage the cost of software acquisition.
🔸 Charm's award-winning API platform integrates with a range of third party healthcare solutions, offering additional functionality to our users.
CharmHealth website
 

Our guest on the third episode of DHD is Dr. Tamayo-Sarver MD PhD, VP of Innovation at Inflect Health and Vituity. In this capacity he wears many hats – from strategic health tech partnerships, investments, and internal incubation, to spearheading the development of ground-breaking health and wellness products
Dr. Tamayo-Sarver's incredible insights into healthcare problem-solving are informed by his diverse experiences. He's not just an executive in a national physician staffing company that provides technology solutions to over 400 hospitals; he's also a practicing emergency physician.
Our podcast host, Ranjani Rangan, and Dr. Tamayo Sarver discuss Vituity's 50 year long journey to becoming a leading national healthcare partnership network, encompassing 5,000 clinicians across specialties, as well as Inflect Health, Vituity healthcare hub that collaborates with multiple tech companies to drive innovation.
We highlight common challenges in healthcare innovation, such as barriers to development due to lack of common language and understanding between clinicians and engineers, or innovators not utilizing the human-centric approach before integrating technology, leading to in lack of flexibility and scalability.

[00:46] Introducing today’s guest and topic.
[02:11] The origin stories and missions of Vituity and Inflect Health.
[04:48] 3 ways Vituity is different from other healthcare innovation organizations.
[06:29] How does Vituity improve healthcare delivery?
[09:22] A major reason why health tech companies fail at innovating digital health solutions.
[11:52] How can tech developers find solutions that benefit stakeholders, patients, and healthcare professionals without adding stress?
[14:02] Decoded Health: How healthcare startups can balance patient wants with the physician’s moral, ethical, legal obligations.
[16:47] How to strengthen collaborations and bridge the gap between healthcare providers and technologists.
[19:56] Reflect & Engage: Where has miscommunication or differing perspectives hindered your progress?
[22:53] Inflect Health’s investment strategies & evaluation criteria for portfolio partners.
[25:54] Rely Health: Example of a successful healthcare startup investment.
[29:31] Emerging trends in digital healthcare & potential investment opportunities.
[31:32] Advice for clinician entrepreneurs.
 
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Resources Mentioned:Inflect HealthVituityDecoded HealthMark Hanson, CEO of Decoded HealthRely Healthcare Connect with Dr. Tamayo-Sarver on LinkedIn
Connect with our Host:Ranjani Rangan
Follow Digital Health Disruptors on your favourite platform:SpotifyApple Podcasts
 

 
🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸
📣 Attention clinician entrepreneurs and technologists! Are you ready to revolutionize healthcare at the point of care? Discover the CharmHealth platform, a perfect ecosystem where technologists and clinician entrepreneurs connect, ideate, and thrive.
Our CharmHealth Innovation Challenge is a recurring competition and a platform for innovators, entrepreneurs and philanthropists in the digital health space to present their ideas, research and innovative health solutions.
🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸
 
ABOUT CHARMHEALTH
🔸 A cloud-based Electronic Health Records​, Telehealth, Practice Management and Medical Billing solution that helps healthcare organizations ranging from large multi-speciality groups to small independent medical offices function efficiently.
🔸 To that effect, CharmHealth’s pricing is simple, unique and helps practices budget and manage the cost of software acquisition.
🔸 Charm's award-winning API platform integrates with a range of third party healthcare solutions, offering additional functionality to our users.
CharmHealth website

The podcast episode is a goldmine of knowledge and thoughtful advice.

Our guest on this show is Dr. Rachel Kuperman MD, the CEO and Founder of Eysz, a medtech/AI startup that is transforming neurological care. Eysz has developed innovative software that analyzes eye movements and uses those movements as biomarkers to assess brain health across a range of neurological conditions, with an initial focus on epilepsy.

We get to hear from Rachel how the combination of her experiences caring for children with epilepsy combined with her understanding of technology and medicine as well as sheer persistence, resilience and willingness to adapt has led to her current business success.

We discuss topics such as:

Epilepsy and AI innovation - measuring and managing neurological diseases
Building a Team/Networking for your startup
Entrepreneurship, funding, and confidence as a woman in tech.
Creating an MVP or Minimum Viable Product and adopting the Lean Startup methodology
The power of storytelling and igniting emotion in the health tech world
Combining persistence and resilience with openness and adaptability

Host Ranjani Rangan provides important context and draws out Dr. Kuperman’s very personal narrative – from her love of treating patients to her frustration with the limits she encountered when it came to effectively improving their quality of life. 

Interested in learning more? Visit this link to read her blog, including “Journey of a Burnt Out Neurologist,” and contact Eysz for more information about progress in the treatment of epilepsy.

Visit this link to listen to, rate and review Digital Health Disruptors on your preferred streaming platform. You can also click here to schedule a demo of Charm Health’s innovative suite of healthcare products.