Lyfebulb and CVS Kidney Care®, a CVS Health® (NYSE:CVS) company, are pleased to announce 10 finalists for the 2022 Innovation Challenge: Accelerating Innovations in Kidney Disease to Improve Health Equity and Outcomes.
“Treatment options for those with the most advanced stages of chronic kidney disease haven’t changed in decades, and the ideas brought forward as a result of this challenge are energizing,” said Jesse Roach, MD, Senior Medical Director, Health Equity at CVS Kidney Care. “For too long, outdated treatments have failed to meet the needs of many, and we look forward to hearing from entrepreneurs on how we can improve kidney health for everyone, especially historically underrepresented populations.”
The finalists, who were co-selected by the Lyfebulb and CVS Kidney Care® teams, brought forward an array of strategic, creative, and scalable concepts to make kidney care more understandable, accessible, and equitable. The potential impact on patients and their care partners, as well as the feasibility and sustainability of innovations in the market, were considerations in the selection of the following finalists:
- Sathya Elumalai, Founder & CEO at Aidar Health
- Chet Bennett, Founder at C. Alan Foundation
- Bilal Naved, Co-Founder and COO at Clearstep
- Sharron Rouse, Founder & Executive Director at Kindness for Kidneys International
- Linda Lusis, VP of Strategic Partnerships at Mozzaz Corporation
- Jonathan Politzki, CEO at Nephra
- Dr. Minnie Sarwal, Founder & CEO at Nephrosant
Dalton Shaull, Co-Founder & CEO at OmniLife- Sarah Lee, Co-Founder & CEO at Relavo
- Shireen Abdullah, CEO at Yumlish
”We are very excited by this inspirational group of finalists who are not only committed to improving health outcomes for kidney-disease patients, but also to improving their access to high-quality care,” said Karin Hehenberger, MD, PhD, Founder and CEO at Lyfebulb. “They demonstrate a high degree of creativity and the potential to successfully break down the barriers kidney-disease patients face so that they may receive the care they need and deserve.”
The finalists will be joined by industry leaders spanning business, venture capital, technology, and health care industries, as well as public officials driving change for a two-day summit in Austin, Texas. Each finalist will present their solutions to an expert panel of judges on May 18-19, 2022, and one winner will be awarded a $25,000 prize to further the growth of their company.
To learn more about the Lyfebulb-CVS Kidney Care® Innovation Challenge, visit Lyfebulb.com.
About CVS Kidney Care®
CVS Kidney Care® is reimagining the future of kidney health – because patients deserve care that helps them live on their own terms. Our unmatched patient insights, grounded in the connectivity of CVS Health ®, link data and clinical knowledge to create a personalized approach that breaks down barriers to care, including systemic barriers that have led to disparities in kidney health. Our end-to-end approach is flexible and customizable to help support a truly patient-centered experience. No matter where people are in their kidney-health journey, we help them connect to an integrated network of options that make care easier to understand, more accessible, and suited to their needs.
We are changing kidney care as we know it, because the more than 37 million Americans living with chronic kidney disease deserve more than twentieth-century solutions. Learn more at cvskidneycare.com.
About Lyfebulb
Lyfebulb is an innovation accelerator that bridges the gap between patient communities and the healthcare industry by working directly with patients and care partners to generate insights and build new solutions to reduce the burden of living with chronic disease. Lyfebulb operates across 12 disease states and counting. For more information, see Lyfebulb.com, TransplantLyfe.com, and IBDLyfe.com, as well as Lyfebulb’s Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Karin Hehenberger’s LinkedIn.
Tuesday, January 4, 2022
NEW YORK — Lyfebulb, an online digital platform and community that empowers people living with chronic illnesses to thrive through education, innovation and connectivity, today announced the launch of IBDLyfe (www.ibdlyfe.com). IBDLyfe is an online community for those living with Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and irritable bowel syndrome, as well as their support partners, to share experiences, find one-on-one mentorships and help individuals feel supported as they embrace struggles unique to their journey, regardless of their physical location.
“There are approximately 2.5 million individuals living with IBD in the US today, the majority of whom are burdened with anxiety and fear about living with this diagnosis for the rest of their lives,” said Karin Hehenberger, MD, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Lyfebulb. “IBDLyfe, built by patients and care partners for patients and care partners, can help reduce some of this anxiety by providing a safe, moderated platform to learn from others (including experts) who have walked this path before.”
IBDLyfe was developed as part of an open and honest dialogue with the IBD community to identify and help fulfil the needs of patients and their care partners throughout their journey.
“Being diagnosed with colitis was one of the most isolating experiences of my life. I didn’t know anyone in the world who had it, and I felt like I couldn’t talk about it because it was too embarrassing. The combination of a serious disease and having no one to turn to was very difficult for me,” revealed Jackie Zimmerman, Community Manager for IBDLyfe. “It wasn’t until I met other IBD patients online that I began to shift how I viewed my life with ulcerative colitis. Having a community to normalize your experiences, validate your concerns, and support you with knowledge only other patients could have is invaluable.”
In addition to peer-to-peer connectivity, IBDLyfe showcases forums where one can see both questions and answers on the minds of the community, motivational stories, validated resources, and a tool to track metrics of one’s own health.
“If a platform like IBDLyfe had existed, I believe some of my family’s circumstances would have come out differently …. I wanted to know what others in my parenting situation were doing or had done. I wanted to talk with those who understood what I was experiencing and feeling without being pitied,” concluded Wendy Lyman, Content Manager for IBDLyfe, whose son has ulcerative colitis.
For more information on IBDLyfe or to register, please visit https://www.ibdlyfe.com/.
About Lyfebulb
Lyfebulb is a chronic disease-focused, patient empowerment platform that connects patients and industry to support user-driven innovation. Grounded with its strong foundation in diabetes, the company has expanded disease states covered into cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, mental health, substance use disorder, migraine, transplantation, psoriasis, chronic cough, chronic kidney disease, and heart failure.
See Lyfebulb.com, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Karin Hehenberger LinkedIn, and Lyfebulb LinkedIn.
LYFEBULB CONTACT:
Karin Hehenberger, MD, PhD
CEO & Founder, Lyfebulb
Phone: 917-575-0210
Email: karin@lyfebulb.com
Katherine Grill, PhD, of Neolth has been selected to receive a $35,000 award, and two runners-up have been selected to each receive a $20,000 award
CHICAGO and NEW YORK – November 18, 2021 – Loyola University Chicago’s Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health and Lyfebulb, a patient-empowerment platform and innovation accelerator, are excited to announce that Katherine Grill, PhD, co-founder and CEO at Neolth, was selected as the first-place winner of the 2021 Lyfebulb and Loyola University Chicago Innovation Challenge: “Meeting Our Moment – Reimagining Innovation, Improving Health Equity, and Building Resiliency.”
Neolth will receive a $35,000 award to further develop its mission of addressing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth mental health by using technology to deliver affordable and accessible mental health support to students during times of crisis. Neolth’s AI-driven digital platform and mobile app offers an end-to-end solution for youth mental health, offering multiple resources and tools to help teens build resilience, increase emotional awareness, reduce stigma, and gain community and professional support.
Two runners-up will each receive a $20,000 award to further the growth of their companies. Yair Saperstein, MD, founder and CEO at avoMD, was selected for providing next-generation clinical decision support at the point of care, providing the best way for clinicians to deploy evidence-based protocols and standardized care pathways and thus reduce variations in the delivery of care. Additionally, Mihir Shah, founder and president at UE LifeSciences, was selected for enabling frontline health workers to easily find and document breast lumps without pain or radiation and in just a few minutes, providing equitable, affordable, and scalable access to care for women of all demographics.
The 2021 Innovation Challenge awards are funded by the generous endowment from Bob and Betty Parkinson, which created the Parkinson School. In addition to opportunities to network and engage with Loyola leadership and its broader community of students, faculty, and connected institutions, the three winners also received an invitation to participate in the five-week I-Corps@NCATS training program, which will be hosted by the Parkinson School in Spring 2022.
“The level of innovation presented by each finalist was impressive and inspiring, and we look forward to seeing their ventures grow and positively impact the healthcare ecosystem,” said Karin Hehenberger, MD, PhD, founder and CEO of Lyfebulb. “COVID-19 has posed significant challenges for all, but we have witnessed its disproportionate impact on marginalized communities, and we applaud our three winners for their dedication to improving access to care and reducing health disparities to create healthier and more resilient communities.”
The 2021 Innovation Challenge took place virtually on November 16-17 and was open to entrepreneurs from diverse sectors working to address the effects of emerging infectious diseases (such as COVID-19) by improving population and public health, health care delivery, and health equity. Finalists were selected to compete at the Challenge and pitch their companies’ solutions to a panel of independent judges from a range of industries, including experts in the fields of public health, venture philanthropy, technology, and healthcare. Solutions presented ranged from biotechnology and contact tracing platforms to virtual clinics, wearables, and other products for consumers and healthcare professionals.
“This marks an exciting chapter for the Parkinson School,” said Elaine Morrato, DrPH, MPH, CPH, founding dean, Parkinson School. “With our inaugural 2021 Innovation Challenge, we are catalyzing innovation by funding novel solutions to improve society’s responsiveness to emerging health crises with the dual goal of reducing health inequities.”
To continue their commitment to facilitating discourse on public health, health care delivery, and health equity, the Parkinson School and Lyfebulb will be hosting a Fireside Chat with the winners of the 2021 Innovation Challenge and two members of the jury on Tuesday, November 30, at 4:30 p.m. EST. This virtual discussion is open to all members of the community, and more information may be found on Lyfebulb.com.
About the Lyfebulb and Loyola University Chicago Partnership
The partnership reflects a shared commitment to advancing health equity and improving health outcomes for individuals, populations, and systems. The inaugural 2021 Innovation Challenge seeks to strengthen and engage entrepreneurs from health care, technology, and other sectors as well as the Lyfebulb and Loyola communities. Additionally, the 2021 Innovation Challenge will generate awareness around the effects of emerging infectious diseases and identify promising solutions that reduce health disparities and improve health care delivery.
About the Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health
Loyola University Chicago launched the Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health in Fall 2019 to educate the health entrepreneurs of the future and impact health care accessibility and equity nationally. The Parkinson School offers 17 degree programs and three certificate and internship programs through four areas of study: Public Health Sciences, Healthcare Administration, Health Informatics and Data Science, and Applied Health Sciences. In Fall 2021, it launched a new 4+1 BSPH/MPH dual-degree program. The Parkinson School builds on the foundations of Loyola’s nationally recognized Stritch School of Medicine and its Biomedical Programs, Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing, and Loyola’s partnership with Trinity Health (known in the Chicago area as Loyola Medicine). To learn more about the Parkinson School, follow us on Twitter @LoyolaParkinson or on Instagram @loyolaparkinson.
About Lyfebulb
Lyfebulb is an innovation accelerator that bridges the gap between patient communities and the healthcare industry by working directly with patients and care partners to generate insights and build new solutions to reduce the burden of living with chronic disease. Lyfebulb operates across 11 disease states and counting. For more information, visit Lyfebulb.com, TransplantLyfe.com, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Karin Hehenberger LinkedIn.
CONTACT:
Loyola University Chicago
Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health
Taylor Utzig
Communications Specialist
608-931-3414
tutzig@luc.edu
Lyfebulb
Karin Hehenberger, MD, PhD
CEO & Founder
917-575-0210
karin@lyfebulb.com
Tuesday, November 30 @ 4:30 PM EST
We invite you to meet the 2021 Lyfebulb-Loyola University Chicago Innovation Challenge Award winners – first place winner Katherine Grill, PhD, Co-founder and CEO at Neolth, and runners-up Yair Saperstein, MD, Founder and CEO at avoMD, and Mihir Shah, Founder and President at UE LifeSciences – as part of Lyfebulb’s virtual Fireside Chat series. Join us for a dynamic conversation, lightly moderated by Lyfebulb CEO Karin Hehenberger, MD, PhD, with Katherine, Yair, Mihir, and two members of our jury, Ram Raju, MD, former Senior Vice President and Chief Community Health Investment Officer at Northwell Health New York, and Abigail Silva, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor at Loyola University Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health.
Topics will span the importance of entrepreneurship and innovation in addressing both the immediate and long-term effects of emerging infectious diseases such as COVID-19, how to support and improve population and public health, health care delivery, and health equity during such crises and beyond, and the impact of health disparities on care access and health outcomes. The discussion will also explore today’s promising areas of research and innovations on the horizon to address these issues.
Please tune in if you are interested in learning about the role of entrepreneurship and innovation in solving a range of public health challenges and creating healthier communities and more equitable care systems.
The Panelists
Yair Saperstein, MD
Co-founder and CEO at avoMD
Mihir Shah
Founder and President at UE LifeSciences
Ramanathan Raju, MD, MBA, FRCS, FACS, FACHE
Former Senior Vice President and Chief Community Health Investment Officer at Northwell Health, New York, Former President and CEO of NYC Health and Hospitals, & Former CEO Cook County Health System (Chicago)
They will compete for a total of $75,000 to be distributed among up to three winners
CHICAGO and NEW YORK – October 14, 2021 – Loyola University Chicago’s Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health and Lyfebulb, a patient-empowerment platform and innovation accelerator connecting patients with patients and with industry to support user-driven innovation, announce the 11 finalists for the 2021 Innovation Challenge: “Meeting Our Moment – Reimagining Innovation, Improving Health Equity, and Building Resiliency”.
“We are very excited to announce this inspirational group of finalists in our first public health initiative in partnership with an academic institution,” said Karin Hehenberger, MD, PhD, founder and CEO, Lyfebulb. “They demonstrate a high degree of ingenuity and conceptual diversity, exhibiting one of this initiative’s primary goals: to highlight the importance of using cross-sectoral approaches to solve complex health challenges.”
The finalists are:
- Shireen Abdullah, CEO at Yumlish
- Romy Antoine, CEO at One Stop Wellness
- Rohan Dixit, founder and CEO at Lief Therapeutics
- Sathya Elumalai, founder and CEO at Aidar Health
- Tim Fitzpatrick, co-founder and CEO at IKONA Health
- Kimberly Gandy, MD, PhD, founder and CEO at Play-it Health
- Katherine Grill, PhD, co-founder and CEO at Neolth
- Yair Saperstein, MD, co-founder and CEO at avoMD
- Mihir Shah, founder and president at UE LifeSciences
- Donald Vetal, CEO at LyfLynks
- Jerry Wilmink, PhD, CBO at CarePredict
“Health is a complex interplay between systemic forces such as economic disparity, racism, climate change, and the immediate challenges to personal and community health facing people every day,” said Elaine H. Morrato, DrPH, MPH, CPH, founding dean and professor, Parkinson School. “These finalists reflect the entrepreneurial energy, the broad-based expertise, and the fervent spirit of Parkinson School students and faculty to impact determinants of health in multiple dimensions.”
The 2021 Innovation Challenge seeks to accelerate the growth of solutions to address the effects of emerging infectious diseases (such as COVID-19) by improving population and public health, health care delivery, and health equity. The 11 finalists were co-selected by the Lyfebulb and Parkinson School teams based on the potential impact, feasibility, and sustainability of their innovations in the market and healthcare ecosystem.
After participating in networking and discussion activities on the first day of the Summit, the finalists will present their solutions to an expert panel of judges comprised of public health, venture philanthropy, technology, and healthcare leaders on November 17, 2021. A total of $75,000 will be distributed among up to three winners, to be selected by judges. The judging panel will include:
- Lisa Hehenberger, PhD, associate professor, Department of Strategy and General Management at ESADE Business School and director at ESADE Entrepreneurship Institute & Center for Social Impact (Barcelona)
- John Ponsoll, managing director at Symbiotix at Havas Health & You (New York)
- Ramanathan Raju, MD, MBA, FRCS, FACS, FACHE, former senior vice president and chief community health investment officer at Northwell Health New York, former president and CEO at NYC Health and Hospitals, and former CEO at Cook County Health System (Chicago)
- Abigail Silva, PhD, MPH, assistant professor at the Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health and director at the Institute of Public Health at Loyola University Chicago
- Jeffrey Yang, chief technology officer at Lyfebulb, IT/digital product advisor, and managing partner at Yang Consulting (New York)
Beyond the pitch competition, the 2021 Innovation Challenge will provide opportunities for finalists and other participants to engage in discussions and exchange insights and ideas about how best to address the obstacles posed by emerging infectious diseases to health systems, disease control measures, care access, and individual health outcomes, which are further exacerbated by social disparities in health. To learn more about the Challenge, please visit Lyfebulb.com.
About the Lyfebulb and Loyola University Chicago Partnership
The partnership reflects a shared commitment to advancing health equity and improving health outcomes for individuals, populations, and systems. The inaugural 2021 Innovation Challenge seeks to strengthen and engage entrepreneurs from health care, technology, and other sectors as well as the Lyfebulb and Loyola communities. Additionally, the 2021 Innovation Challenge will generate awareness around the effects of emerging infectious diseases and identify promising solutions that reduce health disparities and improve health care delivery.
About the Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health
Loyola University Chicago launched the Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health in Fall 2019 to educate the health entrepreneurs of the future and impact health care accessibility and equity nationally. The Parkinson School offers 17 degree programs and three certificate and internship programs through four areas of study: Public Health Sciences, Healthcare Administration, Health Informatics and Data Science, and Applied Health Sciences. In Fall 2021, it launched a new 4+1 BSPH/MPH dual-degree program. The Parkinson School builds on the foundations of Loyola’s nationally recognized Stritch School of Medicine and its Biomedical Programs, Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing, and Loyola’s partnership with Trinity Health (known in the Chicago area as Loyola Medicine). To learn more about the Parkinson School, follow us on Twitter @LoyolaParkinson, on LinkedIn, or on Instagram @loyolaparkinson.
About Lyfebulb
Lyfebulb is an innovation accelerator that bridges the gap between patient communities and the healthcare industry by working directly with patients and care partners to generate insights and build new solutions to reduce the burden of living with chronic disease. Lyfebulb operates across 11 disease states and counting. For more information, visit Lyfebulb.com, TransplantLyfe.com, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Karin Hehenberger LinkedIn.
CONTACT:
Loyola University Chicago
Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health
Taylor Utzig
Communications Specialist
608-931-3414
tutzig@luc.edu
Lyfebulb
Karin Hehenberger, MD, PhD
CEO & Founder
917-575-0210
karin@lyfebulb.com
Dr. Lisa Hehenberger is an Associate Professor in the Department of Strategy and General Management at ESADE Business School and Director of its Center for Social Impact. She is a renowned expert on social entrepreneurship, venture philanthropy, impact investment, and entrepreneurship. Dr. Hehenberger is a member of the Impact & Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium set up by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern and a member of CNBC’s Disruptor 50 Advisory Council, a group of leading thinkers in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. She is also a member of the Academic Working Group on Impact Measurement and Management of the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) at Duke with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Dr. Hehenberger’s research focuses on market building as an entrepreneurial project in the contexts of social entrepreneurship, venture philanthropy, and impact investing. She is the author of numerous books, policy papers, and practitioner reports and has published in the most prestigious academic peer-reviewed journals in management, such as the Academy of Management Journal, as well as in practitioner-oriented publications, such as Stanford Social Innovation Review. She is a member of the scientific board of SDA Bocconi School of Management’s Impact Investing Lab and has served as advisor to the EU-funded research projects SEFORIS (social entrepreneurship for innovative and inclusive societies) and ITSSOIN (impact of the third sector as social innovation). Dr. Hehenberger launched the ESADE Center for Social Impact, through which she is engaged in numerous research projects (e.g. on migrant social entrepreneurship, social impact bonds, venture philanthropy, impact investing in Spain, etc.) and set up ESADE’s impact community and the Social Impact Lab of the MBA to connect ESADE students with the impact sector.
Dr. Hehenberger sits on the advisory boards of impact investing funds such as Creas, Rubio Impact Ventures, Oryx Impact Fund, People and Planet Partners, and Seastainable Ventures and of Lyfebulb. She has advised organizations such as World Wide Fund for Nature, Repsol Foundation, and Meridia Capital Partners on their impact investment strategies. For six years, she was the Research and Policy Director of the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA), the pan-European association for venture philanthropy and social impact investment, where she currently serves as a strategic advisor on research and policy. She also represents the ESADE Entrepreneurship Institute as the academic partner of the Spanish National Advisory Board on Impact Investing (Spain NAB) and served on the French National Advisory Board and the Impact Measurement Working Group of the Social Impact Investment Task Force established by the G8.
Dr. Hehenberger has a PhD in management from IESE Business School and a master’s degree in business and economics from Stockholm School of Economics and HEC (CEMS). Previously, she worked in investment banking at Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in London and at GB Investment Banking in Madrid and Barcelona.
Dr. Ram Raju has a distinguished career of over 40 years as a healthcare provider, teacher, researcher, and community organizer. In his role at Northwell Health – the largest provider in the state of New York serving 2 million people every year in the New York metro area and beyond – Dr. Raju set the strategic vision to improve population health by examining the existing programs aimed at improving the health system’s response to the needs of its most vulnerable communities and working with local organizations to address them.
Prior to joining Northwell, Dr. Raju was the President and CEO of NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), the largest public health system in the country. Dr. Raju was appointed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in January 2014 to lead the 37,000 employees of this $7.3 billion corporation, which includes 11 acute care hospitals, five nursing homes, six large diagnostic and treatment centers, more than 70 community-based health centers, a large home care agency, and one of the New York area’s largest providers of government-sponsored health insurance, MetroPlus Health Plan. During his tenure, he rebranded HHC, implemented EPIC EMR, set a new vision for HHC, and successfully managed the Ebola crisis in NYC.
From 2011 to 2014, Dr. Raju served as the CEO for the Cook County Health & Hospitals System (CCHHS) in Chicago, the third-largest public health system in the country. His proposed healthcare delivery model fetched the much-coveted 1115 Waiver to the Social Security Act, enabling the creation of CountyCare, an Illinois Medicaid program that provided health coverage for more than 182,000 low-income Cook County residents. Dr. Raju’s further recognition that patients are more likely to use care they can access near their home resulted in the development of a network of more than 130 primary care access points through partnerships with FQHCs, safety-net and community hospitals, academic medical centers, and private doctors.
Dr. Raju has served on many local, regional, and national organizations, including as past Vice-Chair of the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) and as board of Trustees of America’s Essential Hospitals and Healthcare Association of NY State (HANYS). He is president-elect of Asian HealthCare Leaders Association (AHCLA), Board Trustee of the American Hospital Association (AHA), a trustee of the NY Academy of Medicine, a board member of NYS Office of Professional Conduct, and was appointed to the NYC Board of Health by the Mayor of NYC. His community activities include serving as a board member of Community Board 2 and Iron Hills Civic Association and a member of the NYS Board of Medicine and Director of NYS OPMC. He served on many FSMB committees and serves as an alternate delegate for the FSMB House of Delegates.
Dr. Raju earned his medical diploma and Master of Surgery degree from Madras Medical College. He underwent further training in England and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. Dr. Raju is also a physician executive, having obtained an MBA from the University of Tennessee and CPE from the American College of Physician Executives.