Latest news with #Medeloop
Politico
16 hours ago
- Health
- Politico
AI, the disruptor-in-chief
FORWARD THINKING Artificial intelligence is upending how industries function and it's coming for scientific research next. Rene Caissie, an adjunct professor at Stanford University, wants AI to conduct research. In 2021, he started a company, that lets public health departments, researchers and life sciences companies pose research questions and receive answers immediately. And, unlike many AI systems, Caissie told Ruth, the AI explains those answers by showing the data its results are based on. 'It used to be hard to do research,' he said, explaining that it takes a lot of time for researchers to get access to and organize data in order to answer basic scientific questions. Manual data analysis can also take months. The company is now partnering with HealthVerity, a provider of real-world health data, to build up its data sources. In turn, HealthVerity will offer Medeloop's research platform to its clients. The company has worked with the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the past. Caissie says the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is already using Medeloop's AI to run public health analyses. Why it matters: Public health departments receive huge amounts of data on human health from a variety of sources. But prepping that information and analyzing it can be onerous. Having access to a research platform like Medeloop could give public health departments and academic medical centers much faster insight into trends and in turn enable them to respond more quickly. How it works: Medeloop's AI is designed to think like a researcher. In a demo, Medeloop strategist John Ayers asked the bot how many people received a first-time autism diagnosis, broken down by age, race and sex, and what trends were visible with that data. He wanted the AI to only include people who had had interactions with a doctor for at least two years prior to diagnosis. The platform returned a refined query to improve results and a suggestion for what medical codes to use to identify the right patients for inclusion in the study. It delivered a trial design that looked at a cohort of 799,560 patients with new autism diagnoses between January 2015 and December 2024. Medeloop's AI showed that 70 percent of new autism diagnoses were for males. A monthly trends report found that, outside of a dip during the Covid-19 pandemic, new autism diagnoses have been on the rise, particularly among 5-11 year olds since 2019. Though Medeloop doesn't determine the cause of autism, the ease with which users can obtain answers could help speed up the pace of research. One of the platform's key innovations is its use of a federated network of data. Medeloop's new deal with HealthVerity will raise the platform's de-identified and secure patient records to 200 million. Notably, the data never leaves the health system, which increases security. Instead, Medeloop sends its AI to wherever the data is stored, analyzes it there and then returns the results to the platform. WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Scientists are making cover art and figures for research papers using artificial intelligence. Now illustrators are calling them out, Nature's Kamal Nahas reports. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Danny Nguyen at dnguyen@ Carmen Paun at cpaun@ Ruth Reader at rreader@ or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@ Want to share a tip securely? Message us on Signal: Dannyn516.70, CarmenP.82, RuthReader.02 or ErinSchumaker.01. TECH MAZE Large language models like ChatGPT and Claude generate inferior mental health care treatment when presented with data about a patient's race, according to a study published this week in npj Digital Medicine. The findings: Researchers from Cedars-Sinai, Stanford University and the Jonathan Jaques Children's Cancer Institute tested how artificial intelligence would produce diagnoses for psychiatric patient cases under three conditions: race neutral, race implied and race explicitly stated using four models. They included the commercially available large language models ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, as well as NewMes-15, a local model that can run on personal devices without cloud services. The researchers then asked clinical and social psychologists to evaluate the findings for bias. Most LLMs recommended dramatically different treatments for African American patients compared with others, even when they had the same psychiatric disorder and patient profile outside of race. The LLMs also proposed inferior treatments when they were made aware of a patient's race, either explicitly or implicitly. The biases likely come from the way LLMs are trained, the researchers wrote, and it's unclear how developers can mitigate those biases because 'traditional bias mitigation strategies that are standard practice, such as adversarial training, explainable AI methods, data augmentation and resampling may not be enough,' the researchers wrote. Why it matters: The study is one of the first evaluations of racial bias on psychiatric diagnoses across multiple LLMs. It comes as people increasingly turn to chatbots like ChatGPT for mental health advice and medical diagnoses. The results underscore the nascent technology's flaws. What's next: The study was small — only 10 cases were examined — which might not fully capture the consistency or extent of bias. The authors suggest that future studies could focus on a single condition with more cases for deeper analysis.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
HealthVerity and Medeloop Announce Strategic Partnership to Enhance Real-World Evidence Insights with AI-Driven Analytics
PHILADELPHIA and MENLO PARK, Calif., June 5, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- HealthVerity, the leader in real-world data (RWD) technology and privacy-compliant data exchange and Medeloop, innovators in AI-powered healthcare analytics, announced today an exclusive partnership designed to simplify and dramatically accelerate how pharmaceutical and biotech organizations, governments, and medical or public health researchers use real-world data for actionable insights and evidence generation. This powerful collaboration unites HealthVerity's extensive, privacy-compliant data ecosystem with Medeloop's cutting-edge AI Agent Analytics technology, enabling customers to uncover insights with unprecedented speed and transform vast, complex datasets into clear, actionable intelligence. Medeloop is a no-code analytics platform where a simple written research question is transformed into a full study, allowing users to rapidly generate insights without requiring programming expertise. Innovative researchers and analytics teams will benefit from unparalleled analytical power, accelerating the speed and impact of their research and decision-making processes. Through this partnership, Medeloop customers across Academic Medical Centers and Health Systems now have access to over 200 million de-identified patient records from HealthVerity's real-world data ecosystem, empowering them to ask their most complex research questions against research grade RWD at scale. Concurrently, HealthVerity pharmaceutical and biotech clients benefit from immediate integration of Medeloop's cutting-edge analytics technology, allowing them to generate deeper, more precise insights tailored specifically to their critical healthcare and research needs. "Our partnership with Medeloop represents a dramatic leap forward in real-world data analytics," said Andrew Kress, CEO of HealthVerity. "Previously, generating insights from real-world data required extensive teams and months of effort. Now, with this partnership combining our access to large-scale real-world data and Medeloop's leading-edge technology, we're enabling researchers and healthcare professionals to directly pose complex questions and receive powerful insights within minutes in a fully transparent, monitored, and human-guided fashion, fundamentally changing the pace and accessibility of data-driven healthcare research." René Caissie, CEO of Medeloop, added: "With HealthVerity, we're reshaping the future of healthcare analytics. By integrating the latest innovations in AI Agent Analytics with the richest real-world datasets available, we empower customers to rapidly achieve insights previously out of reach. This partnership accelerates scientific discovery, drives innovation, and ultimately helps save lives by enabling faster, more informed decisions that improve public health outcomes." Media Contacts: HealthVerityinfo@ MedeloopJohn W. Ayers, Ph.D., About HealthVerity HealthVerity is the leader in privacy-protected real-world data exchange, transforming how healthcare and life sciences organizations connect and analyze disparate patient data. By enabling access to the industry's largest RWD ecosystem, HealthVerity supports critical applications in clinical development, commercial strategy, and regulatory decision-making. About Medeloop Medeloop offers advanced, AI-powered analytics platforms designed to simplify and accelerate healthcare research, enabling pharmaceutical companies, healthcare providers, and researchers to rapidly derive actionable insights from complex real-world data by simply asking a question. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE HealthVerity, Inc.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sara Deshpande brings 'tough love' to seed investing — and why she's not backing down in a turbulent market
Deshpande has spent the past decade looking for the next big consumer trends. She's one of the world's top seed investors, backing companies like Carrot Fertility and Wildtype. Read "The Seed 40: The best women early-stage investors of 2025." Sara Deshpande first met Rene Caissie, the CEO of Medeloop, in 2022 at Startup Garage, the Stanford business school class she helps teach. He pitched her a fledgling startup idea. He and his classmates shared a few business ideas with Deshpande: consumer genetic services, health data tracking, and health management for conditions like diabetes. But Deshpande wasn't convinced. She told Caissie and his team members that they needed to think of their potential consumers first to identify more unique and novel problems. So Caissie reworked his concept and came back to her 18 months later with something better. That second version became Medeloop, an AI-powered medical research startup that now counts Deshpande's venture firm, Maven Ventures, as an investor. It has since raised $23 million from General Catalyst, Maven, and other firms. Deshpande's criticism was emblematic of her approach as an early-stage investor. She isn't the kind of VC who politely nods and writes a check or supports her founders' ideas without question. "With my founders, I'm really known for tough love," she says. "I never say anything I wouldn't say directly to them, and they know everything I'm saying comes from a place of wanting them to succeed." Deshpande has been investing at Maven Ventures since 2014, when she joined as a general partner. Founded in 2013 by Jim Scheinman, Maven set out to become a go-to seed-stage firm for consumer startups, with bets including the $22 billion videoconferencing company Zoom and the $9 billion AI search startup Perplexity. At Maven, Deshpande invests in consumer applications across digital health, climate, and AI. She's backed companies including the fertility benefits startup Carrot Fertility and the sustainable seafood company Wildtype. Above all, she looks for founders who share her vision of chasing emerging consumer trends and are relentless in their pursuit. "We like to back people who'll tear through a brick wall to bring their vision to life," she said. Deshpande began her career at Deloitte in healthcare strategy during the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. "It was a moment when all our clients were trying to figure out what the next wave of consumer healthcare would look like," she says. That experience sparked a lasting interest in how consumers interact with big, complex systems — and what it takes to simplify those systems through tech. While still at Deloitte, she began volunteering at the Idea Village, a New Orleans-based startup accelerator. The day she paid off the loans she took out to attend Stanford's business school, she called the Idea Village's CEO and asked if she could come aboard full time. "That's where I got this knack for helping founders identify and achieve bold visions, against all the odds," she said of the Idea Village. By the time one of Maven's limited partners introduced Deshpande to Scheinman, she had years of experience coaching founders but had never raised outside capital. Scheinman had a few seed investments under his belt, including in Zoom, and needed a partner to help make his vision of identifying and supporting forward-thinking consumer founders a reality. "Within 24 hours of that first meeting, I wrote Jim an email like, 'Here's my job description,'" Deshpande said. Deshpande has been at Maven ever since, helping to grow the firm's portfolio and reputation. She's been a board observer or advisor to companies such as Hello Heart, Carrot Fertility, Daybreak Health, and Medeloop. Now more than a decade in, Deshpande still sees long-term potential in sectors like consumer health, concierge medicine, and personalized care. Deshpande said consumer health technologies remain a resilient sector despite market challenges. An analysis by the digital health advisory company Galen Growth found that consumer health tech investments grew by 9% between 2023 and 2024. But Deshpande isn't blind to the moment. She acknowledged that recent recession fears and market volatility may shape consumer and founder behavior. "It's a really turbulent time to be a founder," she said. "We'd all been hoping for a rosier economic picture. That now seems way less certain." Still, Deshpande said that great companies are often created during periods of economic uncertainty. She's keeping her eye on founders willing to push forward, including through layoffs or dramatic market shifts. "Sometimes that's the kick somebody needs," she said. Read the original article on Business Insider Sign in to access your portfolio
Business Insider
14-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Sara Deshpande brings 'tough love' to seed investing — and why she's not backing down in a turbulent market
Sara Deshpande first met Rene Caissie, the CEO of Medeloop, in 2022 at Startup Garage, the Stanford business school class she helps teach. He pitched her a fledgling startup idea. He and his classmates shared a few business ideas with Deshpande: consumer genetic services, health data tracking, and health management for conditions like diabetes. But Deshpande wasn't convinced. She told Caissie and his team members that they needed to think of their potential consumers first to identify more unique and novel problems. So Caissie reworked his concept and came back to her 18 months later with something better. That second version became Medeloop, an AI-powered medical research startup that now counts Deshpande's venture firm, Maven Ventures, as an investor. It has since raised $23 million from General Catalyst, Maven, and other firms. Deshpande's criticism was emblematic of her approach as an early-stage investor. She isn't the kind of VC who politely nods and writes a check or supports her founders' ideas without question. "With my founders, I'm really known for tough love," she says. "I never say anything I wouldn't say directly to them, and they know everything I'm saying comes from a place of wanting them to succeed." Deshpande has been investing at Maven Ventures since 2014, when she joined as a general partner. Founded in 2013 by Jim Scheinman, Maven set out to become a go-to seed-stage firm for consumer startups, with bets including the $22 billion videoconferencing company Zoom and the $9 billion AI search startup Perplexity. At Maven, Deshpande invests in consumer applications across digital health, climate, and AI. She's backed companies including the fertility benefits startup Carrot Fertility and the sustainable seafood company Wildtype. Above all, she looks for founders who share her vision of chasing emerging consumer trends and are relentless in their pursuit. "We like to back people who'll tear through a brick wall to bring their vision to life," she said. From healthcare strategy to startup advisory Deshpande began her career at Deloitte in healthcare strategy during the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. "It was a moment when all our clients were trying to figure out what the next wave of consumer healthcare would look like," she says. That experience sparked a lasting interest in how consumers interact with big, complex systems — and what it takes to simplify those systems through tech. While still at Deloitte, she began volunteering at the Idea Village, a New Orleans-based startup accelerator. The day she paid off the loans she took out to attend Stanford's business school, she called the Idea Village's CEO and asked if she could come aboard full time. "That's where I got this knack for helping founders identify and achieve bold visions, against all the odds," she said of the Idea Village. By the time one of Maven's limited partners introduced Deshpande to Scheinman, she had years of experience coaching founders but had never raised outside capital. Scheinman had a few seed investments under his belt, including in Zoom, and needed a partner to help make his vision of identifying and supporting forward-thinking consumer founders a reality. "Within 24 hours of that first meeting, I wrote Jim an email like, 'Here's my job description,'" Deshpande said. Deshpande has been at Maven ever since, helping to grow the firm's portfolio and reputation. She's been a board observer or advisor to companies such as Hello Heart, Carrot Fertility, Daybreak Health, and Medeloop. Finding bold founders in a shaky market Now more than a decade in, Deshpande still sees long-term potential in sectors like consumer health, concierge medicine, and personalized care. Deshpande said consumer health technologies remain a resilient sector despite market challenges. An analysis by the digital health advisory company Galen Growth found that consumer health tech investments grew by 9% between 2023 and 2024. But Deshpande isn't blind to the moment. She acknowledged that recent recession fears and market volatility may shape consumer and founder behavior. "It's a really turbulent time to be a founder," she said. "We'd all been hoping for a rosier economic picture. That now seems way less certain." Still, Deshpande said that great companies are often created during periods of economic uncertainty. She's keeping her eye on founders willing to push forward, including through layoffs or dramatic market shifts. "Sometimes that's the kick somebody needs," she said.
