Pear Healthcare Playbook

Founded in 2020, Pearl Health was incubated by AlleyCorp and has raised a total of $95M in funding from 8 investors, led by Andreesen Horowitz and Viking Global Investors. Pearl now has over 100 employees and closed a $75M Series B in January of 2023. Pearl Health is a provider enablement and value-based care technology company that helps primary care providers and healthcare organizations succeed in value-based care, starting with ACO REACH and, soon, MSSP and Medicare Advantage.. Pearl does this by helping PCPs and their staff focus attention on high-risk patients and conditions, enabling practices with insights to programs deliver high quality, holistic care to patients at the right time. In 2024, Pearl is partnering with about 1,800 primary care providers, who collectively serve more than 80,000 patients, across the US in 43 states and Washington, D.C. With over 20 years of experience in healthcare, Jennifer started her career at Triage Consulting Group. She then served as a consultant at Deloitte for 5 years and moved on to Takeda Oncology where she was an Associate Director in market access. She then spent six years at athenahealth where she served in a series of roles in product management, ultimately concluding as an Executive Director for product management. After Athena, Jennifer moved onto a VP / Head of Product role at Hint Health and finally became the Chief Product Officer at Pearl Health in 2021. Jennifer holds a BA from University of California, Berkeley and an MHA from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In this episode, we learn how Pearl Health is trying to improve primary care provider workflows in value-based care, how Jennifer thinks about product management, and where Pearl Health is going next, with their partnerships with retail pharmacies.

This week, we’re super excited to chat with Dr. Matt Lungren, Chief Data Science Officer for Microsoft Health & Life Sciences. At Microsoft, Dr. Lungren focuses on translating cutting-edge technology, including general AI and cloud services, into innovative healthcare applications. As a physician and clinical machine learning researcher, he maintains a part-time clinical practice at UCSF while also continuing his research and teaching roles as adjunct professor at Stanford. Prior to his role at Microsoft, Dr. Lungren was a clinical interventional radiologist and research faculty at Stanford Medical School where he led the Stanford Center for artificial intelligence and medicine and imaging. His scientific work has led to more than 150 publications including work on multimodal data fusion models for healthcare applications. On top of all of that, Dr. Lungren is also a top-rated instructor on Coursera with his AI and Healthcare course designed to help learners with non-technical backgrounds. In this episode, we talk about Matt’s clinical, academic, and private sector experiences, how technology within the radiology field has developed throughout time, and exciting new Microsoft HLS Research projects and the impact of AI research on healthcare.

Welcome back to the Pear Healthcare Playbook! Every week, we’ll be getting to know trailblazing healthcare leaders and dive into building a digital health business from 0 to 1. Today, we're so excited to get to know Wei-Li Shao, President of Omada, a virtual care program that blends human experiences technology and behavior science to help people with chronic conditions achieve their healthy goals. With over 25 years of global healthcare experience, Wei-Li has worked in digital care, biopharmaceuticals, imaging, and diagnostics spanning many therapeutic areas. Before joining Omada, Wei-Li held prominent executive roles at Eli Lilly and Company in the USA, China, Taiwan, and New Zealand. His educational background includes dual degrees in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Wisconsin Madison, complemented by an MBA in marketing from the Kellogg School of Business. In this episode, we discuss Omada Health's core operations, discuss the optimal timing for startups to bring in C-suite executives, explore Omada's journey to serving 1 million members, examine its pioneering work in the GLP-1 (Glucagon-Like Peptide-1) space, and uncover how Omada leverages AI to enhance its services.

This week, we’re super excited to chat with Brian Anderson, co-founder of CHAI, Coalition for Health AI, and Chief Digital Health Physician at MITRE. CHAI is a community of academic health systems, organizations, and expert practitioners of artificial intelligence and data science. Brian leads research and development efforts across major strategic initiatives in digital health, partnering with the US government and private sector companies. Prior to joining MITRE, Anderson led the Informatics and Network Medicine Division at athenahealth, where he launched a new model of clinical decision support leveraging artificial intelligence. He has also served on several national health information technology committees in partnership with the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC). On top of all that, Brian is also a Harvard Medical School Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics and senior advisor for ARPA-H in Clinical Trial Innovation. Anderson completed his clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital and completed his B.A. and M.D. degrees at Harvard College and Harvard Medical School. In this episode, we talk about Brian’s career journey from clinical practice to digital health, CHAI’s efforts to establish AI process standards for healthcare, the concept of a federated network of assurance labs, and advice for the health AI innovation community.

Today we're thrilled to get to know Robin Shah! Robin is the founder and CEO of Thyme Care, a groundbreaking oncology management platform. Thyme Care is a value-based cancer care enabler, collaborating with payers and providers to transform the experience and outcomes for individuals with cancer. Thyme Care's approach combines human guidance with data and analytics to guide patients through their cancer journey. The company partners with health plans and risk-bearing providers to assume accountability for enhanced care quality, improved health outcomes, and reduced total cost of care. Robin's journey in transforming cancer care began at Flatiron Health, a leading healthcare technology company led by two remarkable founders Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg. There, he served as Vice President of Provider Marketing and Strategy, focusing on developing successful go-to-market strategies for both patients and healthcare providers. His passion for building a stronger future for community oncology led him to OneOncology, where he played a crucial role as a founding member. At OneOncology, Robin served as the Chief Development and Marketing Officer, overseeing provider development, marketing strategy, technology integration, and analytics, setting the stage for his work at Thyme Care. In this episode, we discuss Robin's journey into the field of oncology, the inception of Thyme Care, the significance of care navigation in cancer, Thyme Care's strategic approach and achievements, as well as valuable advice for entrepreneurs, including guidance on choosing the right investment partners.

Today, we’re excited to get to know Ellen Dasilva and Matthew Woo, Co-Founders at Summer Health, the company bringing real-time pediatric care to your phone. Summer Health is a pediatric tele-health company focused on radically simplifying access in pediatrics. With Summer Health, you can text a pediatrician (just as you might a friend) for any concern you have about a child, whether urgent or innocuous. Founded in 2022, Summer Health has raised a total of $7.5M in seed funding co-led by Sequoia Capital and Lux Capital. The round also included participants such as Box Group, Chelsea Clinton’s Metrodora Ventures, and many others. Ellen began her career in investment banking at Barclays Capital before moving into tech at X (formerly known as Twitter). After graduating from business school, she joined as the 8th employee of the consumer telemedicine business hims&hers. Matthew started his career in consulting at Simon-Kucher & Partners. He then spent 9+ years in tech where he held various product roles at Meetup, Yo, Intercom, UJET and Meta/Whatsapp. Ellen holds a BA from Brown University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Matthew holds a BA in Business from Ivey Business School at Western University. In this episode, Ellen and Matthew chat with us about building a delightful consumer experience in healthcare, their co-founding journey, and developing a stellar team.

Welcome back to the Pear Healthcare Playbook! Every week, we’ll be getting to know trailblazing healthcare leaders and dive into building a digital health business from 0 to 1. Today, we're excited to get to know Christopher Molaro. Chris is a West Point graduate who served in the U.S. Army for five years, including a tour in Iraq as a platoon leader. Coming back home, he experienced firsthand the gaps in the behavioral health system and how veterans and civilians alike face too many barriers when it comes to receiving appropriate, timely care. While pursuing his MBA at Wharton, Chris met his future co-founder Adam Pardes, and the two agreed–even the most engaging digital mental health apps in the world wouldn’t truly change the problem until the care providers were a part of the solution in a meaningful way. And so they created NeuroFlow. In this episode, Chris and I discuss his journey from a military background to enrolling in Wharton's MBA program. We dive into the inception of NeuroFlow, its go-to-market strategy, partnerships, fundraising insights, the future of NeuroFlow, and the valuable advice he has for aspiring founders.

Today, we're excited to get to know Tina Beilinson Keshani. She's the co-founder and CEO of Seven Starling, a digital clinic making high quality mental health care more accessible for expecting and new mothers. Before Seven Starling, Tina spent six years at Warby Parker in strategy and helped them launch their first optometric telemedicine service in 2015. She worked alongside Warby Parker CEOs, Neil and Dave, learning firsthand how to build and scale a company that also does good in the world. Her experience lies not only in scaling, high growth startups, but also building patient centric digital care experiences. In this episode, we talked about Tina’s journey towards entrepreneurship, her time with Warby Parker, how she and her co-founders built Seven Starling, the success of her maternal mental healthcare company, and advice she has for founders.

Today, we’re excited to get to know Bobby Guelich, Co-Founder and CEO at Elion, the Glassdoor for Healthcare Tech. Founded in 2022, Elion has raised $3.3 million in seed funding from NEA, Max Ventures, 8VC, AlleyCorp, Charge Ventures and Floating Point. Bobby has spent decades making build versus buy decisions at various companies and now is dedicated to the problem of improving that experience in healthcare. Bobby began his career in investment research at Bridgewater Associates and later worked as a VP of Customer Care Strategy and Head of Sales at Oscar Insurance. After that, he spent three years at Formation Bio (formerly TrialSpark), a technology company that specializes in clinical trial management, eventually transitioning into an Advisory Role. In May 2022, he founded Elion. Bobby earned an AB in Economics and Finance from Princeton and briefly attended Stanford Graduate School of Business before he pursued an opportunity at Oscar Insurance. In this episode, we learn about the Elion marketplace and reviews platform, how Bobby advises founders on building versus buying and coming up with a taxonomy for the health tech software stack.

Today, we're excited to get to know Aaron Neiderhiser and Coco Zuloaga. Aaron and Coco are the CEO and CTO of Tuva Health, a healthcare data analytics company simplifying claims and EMR based analytics to supercharge and standardize data-driven innovation. Founded in 2021, Tuva has raised about $4m from YC, Virtue, BoxGroup, and some angel investors. Aaron and Coco are experts at using data science and data analytics to help providers understand how to coordinate care and reduce unnecessary healthcare costs. Prior to Tuva, Aaron served as the Senior VP of Technology at Health Catalyst, a top company providing data and analytics technology to healthcare groups, and worked as a statistical analyst at the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing. During his time there, he met Coco Zuloaga, who would later become his co-founder and CTO. Coco is an experienced data scientist and has held various roles such as senior director of data science at Big Squid Inc and VP of Data Science at Strive Health. Aaron earned a B.A. in Economics from Coe College and a M.A. in Economics from the University of Colorado Denver. Coco completed a Bachelor's Degree in Engineering and Physics from Technologico de Monterrey, an M.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Waterloo, and a Ph.D. from Rice University. In this episode, we learn how Aaron and Coco are trying to democratize and standardize healthcare analytics, speculate on the costs of the lack of standardization in healthcare, and learn about how open-source projects can fix this.

Today, we're excited to get to know Yubin Park, PhD. Yubin is the Chief Data and Analytics Officer at ApolloMed, a leading physician-centric, technology-powered, risk-bearing healthcare company. Yubin leads Apollo’s data team in building data analytics tools to improve the efficacy of value-based care delivery. Founded in 1992, ApolloMed (NASDAQ:AMEH) is a risk-bearing healthcare company of over 10k providers, using next-generation analytics technology to deliver high-quality value-based care to more than 1.3 million members. Yubin has decades of experience applying machine learning and data mining techniques to help providers understand how to coordinate care and reduce unnecessary healthcare costs. Prior to ApolloMed, Yubin served as Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Orma Health which was acquired by Apollo Medical Holdings. Prior, he was the CEO/CTO and Co-Founder of Accordion Health, a data-driven platform for value-based care (acquired by Evolent Health). He now serves as the Chief Data and Analytics Officer at ApolloMed. Yubin is an Adjunct Professor at Emory University teaching a graduate level course in Machine Learning. He holds advanced degrees in Machine Learning and Data Mining from UT Austin, and a bachelor's in Electrical Engineering from KAIST. He regularly publishes research and analytics on LinkedIn, often breaking down complex healthcare papers from JAMA and NEJM to make them easier to understand for less technical audiences. In this episode, we cover Yubin’s founder journey pivoting into value-based care and building/selling his companies, approach to leadership, how ApolloMed differentiates itself in providing value-based care, and advice for technical founders.

Today, we’re excited to speak with Arvind Rajan, Co-founder and CEO/Executive Chairman of Cricket Health. Arvind led Cricket Health which is a technology-enabled specialty care provider for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD). In August 2022, Cricket Health merged with Interwell and Fresenius Health Partners to form the new Interwell Health, a leader in value-based kidney care. Before co-founding Cricket Health, Arvind served as Managing Director and Vice President of New Markets at LinkedIn, where he was responsible for the company’s growth and operations in Asia Pacific and Japan. Arvind has spent most of his career building companies across a wide range of industries. Although the industries have been different, every one of these companies was trying to create transformative change that would have a positive impact on the world. In this insightful discussion, Arvind opens up about his career path, the challenges and successes in building Cricket Health from scratch, practical advice for fundraising, and valuable insights for aspiring startup founders such as strategies and tips for conducting productive board meetings.

Today, we're excited to get to know Dr. Michael Howell. He's the Chief Clinical Officer at Google where he leads the team of clinical experts providing guidance for Google Health products, research and services. He has dedicated his career to improving the quality, safety and science of how care is delivered and helping people get the best information across their health journey. He previously served as the Chief Quality Officer at the University of Chicago and was an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. He's published more than 100 research articles, editorials, and book chapters and is a nationally recognized expert on patient safety and quality. In this episode, we talked about why Google got into healthcare, Google’s 3Cs for health, how to create a clinical team within a tech company, the implications of artificial intelligence, and advice for founders in the AI/LLM space.

We're excited to get to know Dr. Patrick Carroll, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Hims & Hers, an American telehealth company that provides access to prescription and nonprescription solutions online and through a variety of retailers nationwide (and in the UK)! Dr. Carroll is a physician and executive who leads clinical quality and the expansion of Hims & Hers into all 50 states. Previously, Dr. Carroll served as the Group Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Walgreens, overseeing retail clinic business units, as well as clinical programs and health system alliances. He is also the former CMO and VP at Integrated Care Partners at Hartford HealthCare. In this episode, we dive into Dr. Carroll’s experience in Primary Care, his work with Walgreens and the retail model of healthcare, Hims & Hers' focus on the consumer and why it has been successful, along with challenges in the DTC space for healthcare.

Today, we’re excited to get to know Dr. Karen Murphy, EVP, Chief Innovation Officer and founding director of the Steele Institute for Health Innovation of Geisinger. Karen has worked to improve and transform healthcare delivery throughout her career in both the public and private sectors. Before joining Geisinger, she served as Pennsylvania’s secretary of health addressing the most significant health issues facing the state, including the opioid epidemic. Prior to her role as secretary, Dr. Murphy served as director of the State Innovation Models Initiative at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services leading a $990 million CMS investment designed to accelerate health care innovation across the US. She previously served as president and CEO of the Moses Taylor Health Care System, and as founder and CEO of Physicians Health Alliance. Karen has a PhD, MBA and RN degree! Founded in 1995, Geisinger is an integrated healthcare system that includes 13 hospital campuses, two research centers, the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, and a health plan that serves approximately 600,000 members. Geisinger’s more than 30,000 employees, 2,500 providers, nearly 500 residents and fellows, and 360 medical students serve and care for the three million residents in Pennsylvania. In this episode, Karen shares her wealth of experiences from RN to CEO of a health system, Geisinger’s exciting merger with Kaiser to form Risante Health, and key characteristics of a successful partnership between system and startup, her approach on working with startups as an innovative health system.

This week, we’re super excited to get to know Frank Cheung, co founder and CEO of Accorded, an actuarial intelligence company for value-based contracting. Frank is a health actuary with over 18 years of experience. Prior to starting Accorded, Frank led the Analytics function at Collective Health. Prior to Collective Health, he was at Deloitte Consulting working with institutional payers and providers on value-based care and alternative payment models. And prior to Deloitte, Frank was also at Blue Shield of California. Frank is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries. Founded in 2019, Accorded is an actuarial intelligence company with a mission to build a frictionless, sustainable value-based contracting ecosystem. To date, value-based care contracting incurs large operational costs in the form of actuarial resources, consultants, and time. The Accorded Platform simplifies and scales value-based contracting with tools to empower companies at any stage of their value-based care journey to forecast, contract around, and validate the financial value of care. In this episode, Frank discusses the incentives in value-based care, how to pitch to investors unfamiliar with the healthcare world, and his pathway to fixing the frustrations he experienced in 15 years of his career in healthcare.

Today, we’re excited to get to know Vivek, AI researcher at Google and one of the lead researchers for Med-PaLM2, and Viswesh, CTO and Founder of Valar Labs! Vivek is a Research Scientist at Google Health AI advancing biomedical AI to help scale world class healthcare to everyone. Vivek is particularly interested in building large language models and multimodal foundation models for biomedical applications and leads the Google Brain moonshot behind Med-PaLM, Google's flagship medical large language model. Med-PaLM has been featured in publications such as The Scientific American and Forbes. Vivek graduated with his masters from UT Austin in Computer Science and Bachelors at National Institute of Technology in India. Viswesh is the CTO and Co-Founder of Valar Labs. Valar Labs is building clinical grade deep learning to analyze each patient's characteristics and provide clarity to oncologists during decision making. Their AI is built with oncologists at the center and provides interpretable and actionable insights. Prior to founding Valar Labs, Viswesh was a Research Assistant in Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) leveraging cutting edge artificial intelligence to solve healthcare problems. He was also the founder of Kanna, a patented and clinically-validated method to detect Amblyopia in children in India. Viswesh graduated with a bachelors in Computer Science at Stanford. In this episode, Vivek and Viswesh shares how they got into Healthcare AI research and how they fell into different career paths, one leading Research at Google Health AI and the other as the CTO and Co-Founder of Valar Labs. We talk about the future of LLMs in healthcare, and also how to build defensibility in AI healthcare startups.

Today, we're thrilled to introduce you to Kevin Mahoney, an exceptional individual with an extensive background in healthcare leadership. Kevin has been an integral part of Penn Medicine since 1996, holding various leadership positions within the health system and the Perelman School of Medicine. His transformative projects have elevated Penn Medicine's clinical care, teaching, and research missions. Before joining Penn Medicine, Kevin displayed exceptional leadership as the vice president for Johnson and Higgins, focusing on risk transfer and alternative risk management strategies. He also held administrative roles at Bryn Mawr Hospital and Episcopal Hospital. Kevin's insights on health equity, access to quality care, and social justice have been featured in prestigious publications like the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Modern Healthcare recognized his influence by including him in its list of the 100 most influential people in healthcare in 2022. In this episode we talk about Kevin’s journey to healthcare leadership, the increasing costs of care, how founders can partner with Penn Medicine, and insights on the consolidation in healthcare.

Today, we're excited to get to know Dr. Andrew Schutzbank. Andrew spent almost a decade at Iora health, where he held the esteemed positions of Medical Director and Senior Vice President, overseeing clinical operations and product development. He was also the Chief Product Officer at Cricket Health, an organization dedicated to value-based kidney care. He was the Corporate Development Operating Partner at SCAN and now contributes as a board member, advisor, and investor for multiple startups. He is also a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Schutzbank completed his residency at Beth Israel and holds an MD and MPH from Tulane University, along with a BA in neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania. In this episode we talk about his journey to medicine, experience with Iora and Cricket Health, what he looks for in a healthcare pitch, tips/tricks for founders, and insights on the high burnout rate among clinicians.

Today, we're excited to get to know Dr. Marketa Wills, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Johns Hopkins Health Plans, who focuses on optimizing clinical and quality outcomes for approximately 700,000 Johns Hopkins health plan members while efficiently managing costs of care. Marketa previously worked at several national health plans, including United Healthcare, WellCare Health Plans and Centene Corporation. She's also a McKinsey & Company alum (Cleveland Office) where she served a broad range of payer and provider clients on a variety of strategic and operational engagements. She holds an MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and an MBA in Finance and Healthcare Management from the Wharton School of Business. She also trained in adult psychiatry at Harvard's MGH/McLean Adult Psychiatry Residency Program. In this episode we talk about Marketa’s path in medicine, what her role as Chief Medical Officer entails, how she thinks about partnerships with payors, advice she has for founders, and what she is excited about for the future of medicine. Note: since the recording of the podcast, Johns Hopkins HealthCare has changed its name to Johns Hopkins Health Plans.