Big Picture Medicine

Hamish Grierson is the CEO and Co-founder of Thriva, a company which offers direct to consumer blood testing — with a broader mission of increasing healthspan — the number of years people spend in good health. For under £100 you can order a test kit, prick your finger at home and mail the blood sample back. This is then reviewed by a GP. In effect, they’re treating people like adults who can take charge of their own health and data. Hamish came from the world of FinTech having headed International Payments and Remittance at Travelex, before co-founding Thriva in 2016. Thriva has raised $14.7 million dollars to date. We talk about democratising access to healthcare testing and whether there should be limits on what tests we offer people, whether just giving people more data is the panacea in improving life and health span and how sometimes — outsiders are best placed to tackle some of the big problems in healthcare. I hope you enjoy. You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Dr Stephen Reeders founded MVM Partners in 1997. They invest in high growth businesses with bases in London and Boston. He’s had three different lives— Firstly he obtained a BA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge, before getting his Medical Degree from Oxford and then training as a Doctor in some of the UK’s premier institutes such as John Radcliffe, Guys and Queen Square. In part II, he became a Clinical Researcher across both Oxford and some of the US’s greatest research houses. For example, just in the infancy of his career, he discovered PKD1 — a gene linked to Polycystic Kidney Disease. The seminal paper was published in Nature in 1985. Finally — in the third act, he moved into the world of business and investment — in which he tackled how to translate some of these discoveries into great businesses that could benefit people at scale. He was also the first investor and acting CEO of UpToDate. In this interview, I try and unpack what made him able to excel in all three acts — and also, why a flourishing Doctor and Clinical Academic would move into the world of investment. I hope you enjoy. You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Dr Vishaal Virani is Head of UK Health at YouTube. He started his career as an NHS doctor, before moving to healthcare strategy consulting. He then worked at Ada Health as Business Development and Client Success Director, before becoming Global Digital Innovation Manager at Reckitt. Along the way he co-founded Doctorpreneurs which was one of the first and largest networks of doctor entrepreneurs. As well as his role at YouTube, Vishaal is also a Governor at the Royal Free London NHS Trust. This episode is a bit different to usual. This is a call in which I’m getting some mentorship advice on how to build my network in digital health, and how I should be leveraging this podcast to make useful and lasting connections. Although the advice is specific to my case, I think it’s quite useful for anyone who’s starting their career in healthcare and wants to do interesting things in research, entrepreneurship or policy. I think Vishaal’s advice is quite broadly applicable to anyone in similar shoes. Towards the end we discuss YouTube’s mission in healthcare, and some of the challenges that come along with it. I hope you enjoy. You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Mehdi Yacoubi is Co-Founder and CEO of Vital — where they are building the Strava for Health. Essentially a service which incorporates data from wearables (your HRV, your glucose levels, your sleep) and pulls these altogether into a community, also providing clear analytics and recommendations — ultimately transforming how we think about our own health. In 2021, Vital raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-seed round led by JME Ventures. Mehdi is also the author of the newsletter the Long Game which is probably in my top 2 or 3 newsletters I consume. He writes incredibly thoughtful and detailed articles on health optimisation, longevity, fasting, fitness, nutrition, the future of aging & self-experimentation. In this conversation, we essentially break down play by play how to use data and metrics to improve health behaviours — and how it’s not as easy as just give them the data and they will improve their health behaviours. Really there’s so much more to positively influencing our behaviour and psychology — and it’s really fascinating to discuss with someone whose ideas and thoughts I have so much admiration for. I hope you enjoy. You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Deena Shakir is a Partner at Lux Capital where she likes to invest in underdog entrepreneurs building breakthrough companies to accelerate advances and equity in human and population health. She’s led investments into companies like Maven Health; a unicorn in women’s and family health and SteadyMD; a telehealth company. She has a very interesting background. She studied at Harvard and Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. She was then a Presidential Management Fellow at the U.S. Department of State. She directed social impact investments at Google.Org. She was partner at GV (previously Google Ventures). She's been named a "top 30 under 40 in healthcare" by Business Insider and “top 9 women to watch in venture capital" by The Wall Street Journal. She is a member of Fortune's Most Powerful Women and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. We talk about her story, how her network is one of her most important assets and how much VC fits into philanthropy and doing good. I hope you enjoy. You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Dr David Albert is a physician, inventor and serial entrepreneur. He studied at both Harvard and Duke University Medical School. In 2001, he sold Data Critical to GE in a deal that valued Data Critical at $45M. Perhaps his Magnum Opus: AliveCor has raised over $150M and creates devices which are able to take ECGs or heart traces — from anywhere, at anytime. It’s newest innovation: The KardiaMobile Card is a credit card which can take an ECG — all whilst fitting into your wallet. He also has over 75 patents and 100 scientific publications. We speak about his formula and framework for innovating, lessons he’s learnt from his buddies such as Eric Topol and Vinod Khosla and whether everything in Medicine should be democratised. I hope you enjoy. You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Dr Susan Thomas trained as a Geriatrician, before joining Ernst and Young — eventually becoming Health and Sciences Lead Partner. In 2021 she left to become Clinical Director of Google Health UK. We speak about her decision to leave a very lucrative and established role at EY to join Google Health, things she still misses about practicing Medicine, her approach to leadership and whether life gets better as you climb up the career ladder. I hope you enjoy. You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Dr Michael Cantor studied both Law and Medicine at the University of Illinois, before completing his Residency at Harvard Medical School’s Beth Israel Hospital. He is a Geriatrician and has a very interesting career, being the Chief Medical Officer of both Uber Health and Intuition Robotics. We talk about Uber’s role in the future of healthcare, the gig economy and hardcore free market economics applied to patients and why it’s so important for doctors to be in the driving seat as leaders — not just passive observers. I hope you enjoy. You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Dr Claire Novorol trained as a Specialist Registrar in London before completing a PhD in Developmental Neurobiology at the University of Cambridge. With 18 months left until becoming a Consultant, she left Medicine to co-found Ada Health — an AI powered self-assessment health tool. Ada has raised $190 million dollars to date with over 10 million users. We speak about her decision to leave Medicine when she did, whether the NHS is where startups go to die and the power of timing and just taking a calculated risk when it makes sense for you. You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Peony Li is Founder and CEO at Jude — a company bringing bladder care into the mainstream. She studied Economics at Cambridge, and has worked in Investment Banking, she worked as Head of Investments at Founders Factory, at Daye as Head of Operations before finally founding Jude and raising $2.5M. We talk about the rosy picture of entrepreneurship versus the harsh reality, what it’s like to be a founder in a taboo industry and how optimism is a habit rather than something you’re born with. I hope you enjoy. You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io