Paul Hayre

"Digital health is no longer the future; it is the present, reshaping our healthcare landscape in real-time." Excited to be part of the UCSF Digital Health Hub Foundation's Quarterfinalist Party! As a past board member, I'm honored to celebrate the outstanding quarterfinalists. As we reflect on the state of digital health in 2024, it's evident that the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally transformed healthcare delivery. The rapid adoption of telemedicine during the crisis has become a permanent fixture, with over 60% of physicians continuing to utilize this technology. The sprint towards smarter healthcare, catalyzed by necessity, has shattered preconceptions about digital-first health experiences. Virtual care is no longer a stopgap but an integral part of a seamless, anytime, anywhere health ecosystem. 🌍 We're witnessing the rise of B2B2C models in remote consultations, with companies like Teladoc Health and Amwell partnering with insurance providers to integrate their services into health plans. Public sector collaborations, like eConsult Health 's partnership with the NHS in the #UK, underscore the potential for remote consultations to enhance efficiency and accessibility at a national level. The digital health landscape is evolving rapidly, with advancements in remote consultations, mental health support, at-home diagnostics, and patient monitoring. AI and generative AI transform care delivery, making it more efficient, personalized, and patient-centric. 🤖 Yet, challenges remain. While venture capital funding for digital health has stabilized after the pandemic boom, it remains below its 2021 peak. Sectors like digital therapeutics face reimbursement hurdles, and we've seen major players like Walmart and Optum close telehealth businesses. Looking ahead, we anticipate further consolidation in digital health, driven by acquisitions to create broader ecosystems encompass telemedicine, mental health, and other specialized services. As healthcare leaders, we must leverage these digital advancements to improve access, enhance patient outcomes, and drive efficiency in our healthcare systems. The future of healthcare is digital, and the time to embrace this transformation is now. Congratulations to all the finalists! 🎉 Looking forward to the grand finale at #HLTH2024 in #LasVegas! 🙌 By the way, the pink drink that we were holding was delicious—and nonalcoholic! The Digital Health Hub Foundation - Digital Health Awards #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth #UCSFHealthHub #Networking #HealthTech #Entrepreneurship #LasVegasFinale Walter Greenleaf, PhD Daniel Kraft, MD Unity Stoakes StartUp Health University of California, San Francisco UCSF Innovation Ventures American Association for Precision Medicine (AAPM) WISE World Investors & Entrepreneurs Society #AAPMhealth #aapm_health

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M13 is thrilled to lead the Series A in RadiantGraph which is focused on personalization in healthcare. As we continue to invest in early stage companies it is abundantly clear that the biggest indicator of success is the founder and his or her ability to execute on their vision of the future. In this case, I don't think I have seen much better founder-market fit than we have with founder and CEO Anmol Madan. We believe in his vision: in order to have the best patient outcomes in healthcare we need increased personalization and AI is the breakthrough to get us there. Anmol started one of the pioneering digital health companies Ginger and then was Chief Data Scientist at Livongo and Teledoc. He has done it all: early stage, late stage, public company. And he deeply understands the nuances of the healthcare market from all angles which is critical for success. While there are many players building healthcare-specific AI capabilities, RadiantGraph is focused on outcomes: The platform is already processing personalization models for more than 3.5 million people, despite launching just last year. Excited to partner with my friend Adam D'Augelli and the great True Ventures again and Morgan Blumberg who has been deep in the healthcare market with me for many years. More on our thesis in the blog below. https://lnkd.in/evDDmC3W

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Some VC investors believe that brick and mortar - referring to a physical presence of some kind - should be avoided at all costs. Yet, the track record of clinic and hybrid care businesses in health care indicates otherwise. ==> One Medical (sold for $3.9 billion to Amazon), Oak Street (bought by CVS for $10.6 billion), Lifestance (IPO at $7.5 billion market cap), and PE-backed Premise Health (acquired by OMERS Private Equity for $1.1 billion) If a clinic is indicated as the optimal way to deliver care for that patient population, there are creative ways to build and operate them. Full article below with advice and strategies on how to build and operate hybrid clinics from my teammate Anarghya Vardhana from Maveron, Amir Dan Rubin from OneMedical Group, Steven Eidelman from Modern Animal and more!

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Had a blast diving into Amir Dan Rubin's extensive healthcare career on Vital Signs. Amir previously served as the CEO of One Medical and Stanford Health Care, was an EVP at United/Optum and is now the Founding Managing Partner at Healthier Capital. Our conversation spanned payer-provider integrations, lessons learned from leading One Medical, applications of generative AI, and more. Some highlights: ⚡Combining care models We talked a lot about the One Medical/Iora combination. Amir argues that just because two care delivery approaches may occupy the same physical location (e.g., a clinic), that doesn’t mean they necessarily need to conform to the same economic model. For instance, One Medical and Iora were able to combine effectively despite the former being a membership model and the latter being global capitation. Amir emphasizes that much of the overhead resources (e.g., front desk staff, phlebotomy) can be shared across models. ⚡How One Medical uses generative AI to improve efficiency One Medical allows members to message the care team, and then uses NLP to read the message, figure out its content, and triage it to the appropriate team member. Amir is excited about leveraging internal knowledge graphs to get around hallucinations. This approach can point to relevant internal data in helping compose responses, creating more trust and accuracy in the outputs. ⚡Behind the Amazon acquisition One Medical was interested in expanding its direct to consumer offering. However, they recognized that customer acquisition was costly, which is why partnering with Amazon Prime’s existing membership base made sense for them. Amir explains how at their core, both Amazon and One Medical are all about using technology and logistics to create an excellent customer experience. An awesome conversation ranging from health system innovation to startup strategy to health tech investing! Listen to our full episode below: Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wrbnol Apple: https://apple.co/3XWOomb

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🌟 Boston’s Trailblazing Health Tech Startups! 🌟 I thought it would be nice to give a little shout out to some of the health tech startups in Boston putting in work. PathAI – Leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance the accuracy of pathology diagnoses, PathAI is paving the way for more precise and efficient disease detection. Akili Interactive – Bridging healthcare and digital therapeutics, Akili is developing video game-based treatments for cognitive disorders, bringing a unique approach to mental health and wellness. Biofourmis – This predictive health analytics leader offers remote patient monitoring solutions, allowing healthcare providers to offer personalized care and anticipate patient needs. Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc. – Specializing in synthetic biology, Ginkgo Bioworks is transforming drug development and diagnostics by creating custom organisms, fueling innovations in biotechnology Omada Health – A pioneer in virtual care, Omada Health provides digital health solutions to manage chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and mental health, bringing healthcare directly to patients. Buoy Health – Powered by AI, Buoy Health offers personalized health guidance and telehealth support, helping users make informed decisions about their health from home. Eqrx R – Focused on affordable drug development, EQRx is working to make essential medicines accessible, addressing one of healthcare’s biggest challenges—affordability. #BostonHealthTech #InnovationEcosystem #DigitalHealth #HealthcareInnovation #Startups

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Get to know our #hardtech portfolio! Check out the first post in our 'portfolio spotlight' series! Aspect Biosystems, led by CEO Tamer Mohamed, is a leader in regenerative medicine and 3d bioprinting! Learn more below 👇

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Big news from Karoo Health today. This partnership will accelerate their ability to deliver value based care (VBC) for cardiovascular disease. If you are frustrated with America's healthcare system, VBC will give you reasons to be hopeful. Not only does it drive down costs, but it is better care. Initial data shows 29% of patients using Karoo's model have been diverted from at least one unnecessary ER visit. That's huge savings for our healthcare system and a huge impact on those patients' lives...a true win-win.

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Boston's vibrant health tech scene is fueled by world-class accelerators and incubators, empowering startups to drive digital health, biotech, and life sciences breakthroughs. Here’s a look at some key players: MassChallenge HealthTech—This accelerator helps startups transform health solutions across digital and biotech. It connects entrepreneurs with resources and mentors to drive meaningful change. LabCentral – A coworking lab space offering shared resources and lab facilities, LabCentral supports biotech and health tech startups by providing them with an innovative, collaborative environment. #Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab – Located at Harvard, this incubator offers lab and office space to promising biotech and life sciences startups, helping them scale groundbreaking health tech solutions. Richi Entrepreneurs – With a global outlook, Richi Entrepreneurs offers a unique two-week immersion for international health tech startups, connecting them with Boston’s local mentors, investors, and industry leaders. Xontogeny – Specializing in life sciences, Xontogeny partners with early-stage health tech companies, providing strategic guidance and operational support to accelerate their journey from concept to market. These incubators and accelerators are not just nurturing innovation—they’re powering the next generation of health solutions! 🌟 #BostonHealthTech #InnovationEcosystem #Biotech #HealthTech #StartupAccelerators

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Exciting news from Monica Chopra, Jeffrey De Flavio, MD, Samantha Adelberg, and the rest of the Auxa Health team as they officially announce their $5.2M Seed round. The team's deep industry expertise and drive for change have led them to solve critical infrastructural friction to providing quality healthcare and adoption of value-based care. Auxa's AI benefit navigation platform is simplifying the complexities of healthcare by streamlining all of the fragmented and siloed data and information to make it actionable in real-time for healthcare organizations. For the 70% of Americans who aren't getting access to the health and social care benefits they deserve, Auxa's solution will be pivotal in enabling equitable care. We're thrilled to partner with co-investors Zeal Capital Partners, AlleyCorp, Laconia, and Chaac Ventures on this journey and look to share many more milestones ahead. Cc K50 Ventures, Ryan Bloomer, Daniel Vásquez, Nick Talwar, Stefanie Ng https://lnkd.in/dPDY7-Db

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As I said right at the start of this week's The Heart of Healthcare Podcast, Shivdev Rao is one of the most exceptional founders I have ever worked with. He is also a great human being. In this week's episode he shares what is it like leading the 🚀 that is Abridge and some awesome life lessons. IMHO this is a great listen for founders building in both the AI and healthcare fields!

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Excellent summary of our challenges with cancer screening in the The New York Times. We spend $43B/year to screen for cancer (actually only 5 cancers, breast, colon, prostate, lung, and cervical) on an annual basis- with a lot of that cost coming from colon cancer screening, specifically colonoscopy, which is the most expensive type of screening. Here are the problems with cancer screening in the US today, as someone who spends a lot of time looking at this data: We mostly screen based on age, but the age of the most common cancers is decreasing, and guidelines do not take that into account. We do not screen based on risk factors that are contributing most to the rise in cancer in younger people, including lifestyle, obesity, diabetes, family history, and genetics. Too many people with a family history of cancer have not been tested to inform their genetic status. We have not communicated that obesity contributes more to cancer than smoking- either to patients or PCPs. We incentivize the wrong things with our payment models. As a result, our cancer screening process spends much more than it should, and is far less effective than it should be. Thanks Gina Kolata for a great article. https://lnkd.in/e5B-e25T #diagnostics #precisionmedicine #healthcare #NYT #cancer

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Check out this insightful panel discussion on precision therapeutics with our portfolio company Circular Genomics

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This article by the WSJ is critically important for public health officials and HealthTech entrepreneurs to internalize. We need multiple solutions for patients to move towards post GLP-1 usage. These solutions need to be easy to implement, non-disruptive to daily life and focused on caloric restriction , lifestyle change and muscle gain. Too many startups are still focused on GLP-1 prescription and delivery. Not enough people focused on the next stage of the weight management journey. As the Journal states, the benefits of the GLP-1 craze are only going to be successful long term if the transition off of them is successful. Otherwise, we risk unforeseen, long term consequences to a large group of patients stuck on GLP-1's with no healthy way to transition off. https://lnkd.in/dYBd3HaN Meghan FitzGerald James Stearns Dominic Perks John LaMattina Raju Kucherlapati

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Some great advice in this interview — featuring Jeffry Weinhuff of Visionary Ventures — relevant to all sub-sectors of #medtech. My favorite line is “investment capital is not tuition.” 😂 But the best advice stems from the insight that good exits via IPO or M&A processes with multiple buyers competing for your company require that most medtech companies must prove their value via strong commercial metrics. And doing that takes a lot of time, expertise and money. Plan, hire and raise capital accordingly. At Vensana Capital, our investment process centers on a deep analysis of every aspect of getting a breakthrough medtech innovation to market, no matter what stage of development a company is at today. We like entrepreneurs who believe their innovation can be highly impactful to patients. We love the ones who want to leave no doubt. https://lnkd.in/eDsUqgn6

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Thrilled to see women's health innovation and investment gain unprecedented momentum. In the past 6 months, we've seen numerous foundational reports and analyses from influential organizations such as the WEF, NIH, Gates Foundation and more (on top of the The White House Initiative for Women's Health) that did not exist even a few years ago. Here's a roundup - would love to hear what else folks are seeing: 🚀 March 2024: "Can investors help women’s health break through the glass ceiling" article by Deloitte (jen radin, Christine D. Chang) https://lnkd.in/gAR4Jk7M 🚀 Jan 2024: "Closing the Women's Health Gap: A $1T Opportunity" report by McKinsey Health Institute (Lucy Perez, Valentina Sartori) and World Economic Forum (Amira Ghouaibi) https://lnkd.in/gznq2t8N 🚀Jan 2024: "2024 Could Be Women’s Health’s Long-Awaited, Much-Needed Standout Year" article in Forbes by Eva Epker (Avestria Ventures) https://lnkd.in/gGBPM_gR 🚀 Jan 2024: "Decoding Femtech Consumers: Defining Needs and Segmentation in Women’s Health" article by L.E.K. Consulting (Candace Nagaraja, Sheila Shah) https://lnkd.in/g-tGr8gK 🚀 Jan 2024: "Redesigning healthcare with women in mind" white paper and open letter by Kearney (Paula Bellostas Muguerza) and FemTechnology Summit (Oriana Kraft) https://lnkd.in/gemcfDcH 🚀 Q1 2024: "Femtech: Poised for growth" report by Deloitte (Heather Gates, Angela Vanscoy) https://lnkd.in/gkZGh_Cd 🚀 Dec 2023: "Innovation in Women's Health 2023" report by SVB (Raysa Bousleiman, Pooja Majmudar, PhD, Nina Kandilian) https://lnkd.in/gQR2qaHH 🚀 Dec 2023: "Investing in Motherhood Research Report" by Ingeborg Investments (Anna Mason, Devon Pasieka) https://lnkd.in/g9wKjaTi 🚀 Oct 2023: "Women's Health Innovation Opportunity Map" by The National Institutes of Health (Jamie White, Janine Austin Clayton) and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Maike Scharp, Ru-fong Joanne Cheng, MD, FACOG supported by Bethanie Thomas) https://lnkd.in/gqzzGFaD 🚀 Oct 2023: "Empowering Women’s Health: The Rise of Investment Opportunities in Women and Family Healthcare" article by Leerink Partners (Sasha Kelemen) https://lnkd.in/g8da2sUA 🚀 Oct 2023: "The Future of Women’s Digital Health Solutions" industry report by the Consumer Technology Association (Catherine Pugh, René Quashie) https://lnkd.in/ge_7WjjD cc: RH Capital

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I’ve had the chance to go deep with a number of digital health alum, healthcare mentors and #corporate innovation partners over the past few days. A few themes to share:   1. Digital will change healthcare. Period. How is hard. But it will happen and the best are continuing to push ahead. 2. What keeps companies in the S&P 500 for 50 years or more? Partnerships and innovation. This is why large systems must practice the hard art of both partnership and partnership towards innovation. For startups, partnership reps may be more important than brand. 3. There is a difference between needs and behaviors that startups need to understand, especially in Healthcare where incentives, process, practices are complex. Finding who pays early is not only essential but existential. 4. Don’t optimize for valuation, optimize for value. Over the long-run, this is what will matter. In Healthcare, today value will have to tie to ROI. Pharma, providers, payors are under pressure. Your solution needs to be must-have and drive ROI.   MC Healthcare was launched over 5 years ago to accelerate industry/startup intelligence and collaboration and commercial partnerships for digital health startups and industry (payors, providers, pharma). Calling startups to apply. Want to be a partner to find and work with the best? DM me directly.

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7 ideas that Focalpoint Partners is interested in backing: ‍1️⃣ GLP-1 modulators for neuro disorders Preliminary research suggests that GLP-1 modulators like Ozempic and Mounjaro can have positive impacts on cognitive decline, ADHD, addiction, and other neuro disorders. We would be interested in backing teams developing GLP-1s that are optimized for these use cases. ‍2️⃣ Invasive brain implants that don't require a craniotomy We suspect that the future of brain computer interfaces and neuromodulation is invasive, but we recognize that craniotomies are a real bore. Thus, we are interested in any approach that bypasses the need for a hole-in-the-skull. 3️⃣ Multi-target drug discovery and development We believe that most neuro and psychiatric disorders have multiple causes and thus require multi-targeted (polypharmacological) solutions. This is easier said than done due to combinatorial explosion in multi-target screening. It is further complicated by the fact that the biological response to multi-receptor modulation is usually not additive or linear. We are interested in backing teams developing innovative computational or biological models that make polypharmacological drug discovery and development more tractable.  ‍4️⃣ Leveraging the body's bioelectrical networks Bioelectric signaling - how cells communicate through patterns of voltage - is a powerful and underexplored biological control system that could revolutionize how we treat neurological conditions. By understanding and manipulating the voltage patterns between cells, we may be able to guide neural tissue repair, promote proper circuit formation, and even reprogram dysfunctional neural networks that underlie various brain disorders. ‍5️⃣ Biological/wetware computing While LLMs have come a long way, organic processors have some (theoretical) advantages over silicon CPUs and GPUs for machine learning and artificial intelligence: lower power consumption, improved online learning, more efficient memory encoding, better parallel processing, etc.  6️⃣‍ Neuromorphic computing & emulation: single-neuron to whole brain One of the best ways to understand something is to emulate it. While prior efforts like the Human Brain Project have underwhelmed, we believe that accurately emulating the brain is still a worthwhile goal that could impact areas from drug development to AGI. It is unlikely that we'll accurately emulate a whole brain in the near term, so it is probably better to start with single neurons and then small animals. 7️⃣ AI models optimized to work on "wide" biological data Biological data is often "wide" (i.e. has many more "columns" than "rows") due to both the relatively high cost of collecting samples and the high dimensionality of most interesting data sets (genomes, RNA sequences, 3d fMRI images, etc). This makes analysis difficult due to the curse of dimensionality. Novel methods of analyzing "wide" data sets could unlock tremendous value for patients. 

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Chris Diorio is one of the great founder CEOs and technologists I've ever been lucky enough to work with and learn from. The story of Impinj is fascinating and inspiring. I love his advice for all leaders: "My No. 1 job as a CEO is to give every person in the company the opportunity to be wildly successful. I truly feel that if every person in the company is wildly successful, the company can’t help but be wildly successful." Look forward to further discussion with Chris on an upcoming Madrona Founded and Funded podcast about lessons learned from building the overnight-20-year-success-story that is Impinj.

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