The Pulse by Wharton Digital Health

Aidan Dewar, Nourish, on Using AI to Build a Better Healthcare System

In this episode of The Pulse, I sat down with Aidan Dewar, co-founder and CEO of Nourish, to talk about one of the most underleveraged opportunities in healthcare: treating chronic disease through nutrition and lifestyle change. Nourish has built the largest network of registered dietitians in the United States and layered virtual physician care, lab testing, and medication management (including GLP-1s) into a single, insurance-covered platform. In just over four years, the company has gone from a virtual dietitian booking platform to a full-stack virtual metabolic clinic, tripling revenue year over year and recently closing a $100 million Series C. In our conversation, Aidan and I explored: * His path from childhood entrepreneurship to co-founding Nourish * Why cardiometabolic dysfunction is the most upstream problem in healthcare (and why now is the right time to solve it) * How Nourish built the largest registered dietitian network in the U.S. * The role of personalization and AI in making behavior change stick * How Nourish thinks about GLP-1s: responsible prescribing, aligned incentives, and why medication alone isn't the answer * What it took to raise a $100M Series C in a selective funding environment Hope you enjoy the episode! Learn more about Nourish: http://nourish.com/thepulse [http://nourish.com/thepulse]

Ellen Rudolph, co-founder and CEO of WellTheory, on rebuilding autoimmune care

In our latest episode of The Pulse, I sat down with Ellen Rudolph, co-founder and CEO of WellTheory, a company rebuilding autoimmune care through a root-cause, longitudinal approach. Ellen shares her personal journey from patient to founder, why traditional healthcare continues to fail millions living with autoimmune conditions, and how WellTheory is creating a more personalized and evidence-based model of care. We also discuss the company’s evolution from direct-to-consumer to enterprise, the intersection of autoimmune disease and women’s health, and her advice for founders navigating uncertainty.

Lauren Makler, Cofertility, on Making Egg Freezing Accessible through Tech-Enabled Services

In this episode of The Pulse, I sat down with Lauren Makler [https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenmakler/], co-founder and CEO of Cofertility [https://www.cofertility.com], to talk about one of the most personal and overlooked challenges in women's health: the cost and complexity of egg freezing and donation. Lauren's career is a study in conviction - from launching Uber Health to channeling a deeply personal health journey into a company reshaping third-party reproduction in the U.S. In our conversation, Lauren and I explored: * Her path from Uber to healthcare entrepreneurship and the personal diagnosis that sparked Cofertility * Why existing egg freezing companies were making the problem worse, not better * How Cofertility's Split model works and what makes it fundamentally different from traditional egg donation * Building a three-sided marketplace in a high-stakes, highly sensitive industry * How AI is changing the pace of product development at Cofertility * What Lauren looks for in the people she hires and what it really takes to thrive at an early-stage company

Priyanka Jain, Evvy, on Using Biomarkers to Unlock Precision Women’s Health

In this episode, I chatted with Priyanka Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of Evvy. Evvy is tackling that challenge by starting with one of the most overlooked areas in medicine: the vaginal microbiome. While vaginal discomfort is one of the leading reasons women seek healthcare, it remains a space shaped by stigma, poor diagnostics, and treatments that too often miss the mark. In our conversation, we explored Priyanka’s founding journey, why Evvy chose the vaginal microbiome as its starting point, how the company built trust with patients and providers, and what the future of precision women’s health could look like. For more information on topics discussed in the podcast: * Evvy: https://www.evvy.com/ * The Center for Intimacy Justice: https://www.intimacyjustice.org/ * Priyanka's book recommendation: The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

Dr. Giovanni Colella, Vanna Health, on Reimagining Community-Based Care for Serious Mental Illness

In this episode of The Pulse, I had the opportunity to sit down with Giovanni Colella, MD [https://www.linkedin.com/in/giocolella/] - a psychiatrist and experienced healthcare entrepreneur - to discuss his journey from clinical care to company-building, and what it takes to design care models for healthcare’s most complex populations. Over the past several decades, Giovanni has co-founded several influential healthcare companies, including RelayHealth (acquired by McKesson), Castlight Health, OODA Health (acquired by Cedar), Solara Health, and Brightline, focused on pediatric behavioral health. Today, he’s the co-founder and CEO of Vanna Health [https://www.vanna.health/], a company delivering community-based care to individuals with serious mental illness (SMI), primarily within Medicaid populations. His perspective is shaped by both deep clinical training and lived experience building and operating companies at the intersection of care delivery, administration, and technology. If you're interested in additional resources for staying up to speed on behavioral health, here is a list of Giovanni's podcast and newsletter recommendations: * Hidden Brain (Podcast): The gold standard for understanding the unconscious patterns that drive our behavior. * The Happiness Lab (Podcast): Yale professor Dr. Laurie Santos shares the actual science of well-being (and debunks common myths). * Huberman Lab (Podcast): Great for deep dives into neuroscience and "tools" for mental and physical health. * Wondermind (Newsletter): A fantastic resource for "mental fitness" with expert interviews and practical daily exercises. * 3-2-1 by James Clear (Newsletter): While focused on habits, it’s rooted in behavioral science and offers great weekly reframes. * Psych Central (Newsletter): A perfect weekly pulse-check on the latest evidence-based mental health research.