StartUp Health

10/03/2026

What happens when GLP-1 shifts the conversation from weight loss to nutrition? 💉🍽️

StartUp Health community member Victor Penev of Edamam says this moment could permanently change how people think about food in chronic condition management, from diabetes to kidney disease to Alzheimer’s.

For years, diet advice was often ignored. Now people are paying attention because treatment works better when food is part of the equation.

Are GLP-1s finally making Food as Medicine impossible to ignore?

Watch more ⤵️
https://youtu.be/QnuYSa11uPw

09/03/2026

StartUp Health community member Dare Odumade, CEO & Founder of Chekkit Technologies, has been named one of The Guardian Nigeria's Top 100 Strategic CEOs of Nigeria's Most Transformative Companies in 2025.

Chekkit assigns secure digital identities to physical products, enabling brands and consumers to verify authenticity, track supply chains, and build trust at every touchpoint. In markets where counterfeit food and medicine pose serious risks to families, that transparency can be lifesaving.

The company has already secured millions of pharmaceutical products and protected hundreds of thousands of consumers, working with global brands like Merck and Nestle, and its work has earned accolades including the 2022 Global Startup Awards for Best Commerce Tech in Africa and recognition as a top healthtech startup by Sanofi's Afritech Awards.

This recognition highlights what's possible when innovation meets purpose, turning product verification into a tool for consumer safety and brand trust across Africa and beyond.

🔗 https://guardian.ng/specials/top-strategic-ceos-of-nigerias-most-transformative-companies-in-2025-21/

The story of Chekkit Technologies begins with the founder, Dare Odumade, whose journey exemplifies a relentless drive to solve challenges

09/03/2026

What if one of healthcare’s biggest bottlenecks is not a lack of clinicians, but the invisible administrative burden that keeps them from patients? 🩺

StartUp Health community member Dr. Ian Madom of Mocingbird is tackling one of healthcare’s least visible but most persistent problems: licensing and compliance complexity. As a practicing orthopedic spine surgeon, he knows firsthand how fragmented requirements, shifting deadlines, and multistate rules can pull clinicians away from care.

In this new Health Moonshot Update, Dr. Madom shares how Mocingbird is simplifying that system for clinicians, administrators, and health systems, while opening new pathways for access across the U.S.

Read, watch, or listen on Health Transformer Journal ⤵️
https://media.startuphealth.com/p/health-moonshot-update-mocingbird-turns-licensing-chaos-into-clinical-capacity

09/03/2026

Healthcare breaks when illness destroys your ability to earn.

StartUp Health community member Richard Hanbury of Sana Health explains why out-of-pocket models work for elective care but fail people living with chronic pain or mental health conditions.

Watch the full conversation ⤵️
https://media.startuphealth.com/p/sana-health-advances-toward-global-scale-in-pain-and-ptsd-care

08/03/2026

🤖 Vinod Khosla just dropped some truth: AI co-pilots are holding us back! Instead of having AI assist humans, let AI do the work while humans supervise and approve. The mismatch in how we operate is real - time to rethink our approach! ⁣
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🌟 This is an excerpt from Vinod’s fireside chat at StartUp Health’s Apollo House on Health Moonshots in the Age of Superintelligence. Watch the full video ⤵️⁣
https://www.startuphealth.com/startup-health-blog/vinod-khosla-on-health-moonshots-in-the-age-of-superintelligence-build-trust-then-let-ai-scale-care⁣
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✅ Don’t miss the opportunity to learn from the best! Join the StartUp Health community to be part of live conversations like this ⤵️⁣
https://www.startuphealth.com/⁣

07/03/2026

✨ Sometimes the most important investment is belief.

StartUp Health community member Avanlee Christine, CEO & Founder of Avanlee Care, reflects on the early days of building her company and what it meant to have partners like StartUp Health who believed in the mission before the rest of the world caught on.

Purpose. Persistence. Community.

Those ingredients can change the entire trajectory of a founder’s journey. 🚀

We are proud to support Avanlee as she continues scaling impact for caregivers and families everywhere.

✅ Join her in a Health Moonshot Community ⤵️
https://www.startuphealth.com

06/03/2026

So much momentum across the StartUp Health community this week 🙌

Here's what's moving:

🤝 Frank Westermann and Anton Kittelberger, Co-CEOs & Co-founders of 9amHealth, partnered with Withings Health Solutions to bring body composition monitoring into employer-sponsored obesity care.

🦷 Brant Herman, CEO & Founder of Dentistry.One, teamed up with Harmony Health Foundation to expand access to preventive dental care through saliva-based screening and virtual care.

🩺 Joe Eibl, PhD, CEO & Co-founder of Flosonics Medical, secured a Vizient Innovative Technology contract for the FloPatch wearable doppler ultrasound.

🫶 Sami Lakka, PhD, CEO & Founder of LAKKA Health, received a Gates Foundation grant to support clinical evaluation of Siiring.

🤝 Jeff Glueck, CEO & Co-founder of Salvo Health, deepened the company's strategic partnership with Lohman Technologies to advance comprehensive remote GI care.

This is what building the future of health looks like — one breakthrough at a time.

06/03/2026

Digital health companies need validation data and healthcare partnerships to scale. StartUp Health community member Robin Roberts of datosX connects the two—providing critical data while piloting your technology with leading healthcare systems like Kaiser and Banner.

Learn more ⤵️
https://media.startuphealth.com/p/datosx-is-building-the-validation-engine-for-digital-health-in-the-age-of-ai

06/03/2026

Healthcare is confusing enough that even people inside the system often cannot explain how it fully works. 🤯

StartUp Health community member Justin Ayars of EqualityMD says that confusion is not accidental, and it is one reason so many people delay care until problems become harder and more expensive to solve.

EqualityMD is built around a different idea: transparent, culturally competent care that helps people understand their options, access clinicians with empathy, and receive care on their own terms. Employers benefit too, with lower costs, fewer administrative burdens, and healthier teams.

Watch more ⤵️
https://media.startuphealth.com/p/affordable-inclusive-insurance-free-inside-equalitymd-s-next-chapter

05/03/2026

For years, community health workers had almost no support from the tech world.

That’s starting to change.

StartUp Health community member Nick Lockett of Pear Suite explains how new reimbursement models and AI tools are finally giving CHWs the technology they need, from automated screening to AI agents and compliance support. 🤖🏥

Watch the full video ⤵️
https://youtu.be/1TecfQDVl2c

05/03/2026

🤝 StartUp Health community member 9amHealth has partnered with Withings Health Solutions to bring body composition monitoring into its virtual obesity care programs for employers.

Here's why this matters: Effective obesity care isn't just about the number on the scale. As patients lose weight, clinicians need to ensure they're losing fat, not critical lean muscle mass. This partnership equips 9amHealth's care team with real-time body composition and blood pressure data from Withings' cellular-connected devices, helping guide safer prescribing, earlier treatment adjustments, and better long-term outcomes.

The results speak for themselves: 9amHealth found that members who weighed in at least monthly achieved 46% more weight loss than those who didn't. And with Withings reporting 90%+ sustained engagement over six months, the focus here is on making monitoring effortless so participation sticks.

Announced on World Obesity Day, this is a strong example of what happens when smart hardware meets whole-person clinical care.

➡️ https://hitconsultant.net/2026/03/04/withings-9amhealth-partnership-remote-patient-monitoring-obesity-care/

Withings and 9amHealth partner to deploy cellular-connected smart scales and blood pressure monitors, driving deeper engagement and better outcomes in virtual obesity care.

04/03/2026

Some journeys into health innovation are deeply personal.

Nandan Rao was pursuing a PhD in economics in Barcelona when his father got sick. Nandan came home to be with him — and discovered his digital health company had been hit hard by COVID, losing 80% of its revenue practically overnight.

Together, they spent a year and a half rebuilding everything from the ground up. Today Starlight is focused on helping physicians thrive in value-based care.

A powerful reminder that the most meaningful work often starts close to home.