It has now been more than six months since the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of Covid-19 to be a public health emergency of international concern.
In the months since that announcement, there has been a huge focus on the topics of health and healthcare, both when it comes to Covid-19 and many other conditions affecting public health.
There has, perhaps, been no other time in modern history in which efficient and accessible healthcare has been a more relevant topic.
With all of this in mind, the World Economic Forum (WEF) announced its Technology Pioneers for 2020 in the fields of health and healthcare in June. The seven start-ups selected by the WEF are innovating in health and creating medtech solutions focusing on a range of different issues, from diseases with unmet needs to digital health platforms.
Ada Health
Ada Health is a Berlin-based start-up that was founded by Claire Novorol, Martin Hirsch and Daniel Nathrath in 2011. Outside of its two offices in Berlin, the company has bases in Munich, London and New York.
In episode 8 of #COVID19talks, our CEO and Co-founder Daniel @nathrath explores how the Ada COVID-19 screener helps our partners and what else they can expect from working with us.
Have you tried our COVID-19 screener? Let us know in the comments below. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/923lVBTCTL
— Ada (@adahealth) July 8, 2020
Some of the diseases it is currently trying to gain a greater understanding of include motor neurone disease, frontotemporal dementia and Parkinson’s disease.
To discover drugs suitable for treating these conditions, the start-up uses the same technological breakthroughs that power Google’s search engines to map out the hundreds of genes that cause each disease and find drugs that target all the genes at once.
Vim
Also headquartered in San Francisco is Vim, a healthcare technology platform founded by Asaf David, Oron Afek and Yael Peled in 2015. Backed by Seqouia and GreatPoint Ventures, Vim curates networks of healthcare providers and connects them with patients.
The solution helps patients find doctors that best fit their needs, provides a booking solution and helps providers benefit from value-based contracts without the cost and administrative complexity of traditional programmes.
Vim aims to reduce the unwarranted variation in the US healthcare system to be on par with comparable OECD countries on a per capita basis. The platform also enables healthcare providers to analyse referral patterns and make value-driven decisions for their businesses.
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