Kate Wolin
Dr. Kate Wolin is a behavioral epidemiologist, digital health entrepreneur, investor and professor. Following her academic medicine career at Washington University School of Medicine and Loyola University, Dr. Wolin co-founded and served as CEO of a digital health start-up that was acquired by Anthem, Inc. She then served as Chief Science Officer of a population health platform company and as head of product for Optum's direct-to-consumer business. Dr. Wolin is a partner at PACE Healthcare Capital in Chicago. She is also an advisor to start-ups and enterprise organizations on bridging clinical and behavioral science with commercial product strategy and execution. She earned her doctorate at the Harvard School of Public Health and completed her fellowship training in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Wolin is a Fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine and the American College of Sports Medicine. She has been named as a Forbes Healthcare Innovator That You Should Know.
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Sc. D., Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health
B.A., Anthropology, Tufts University
Digital Health for the Entrepreneur (HCAK-975-5)
The goal of this class is to examine what contributed to the successes and challenges for early-stage digital health companies over the last decade+ and use those learnings as a vehicle for examining existing opportunities on the horizon for the entrepreneur.
We will look at the trends in venture investment dollars and how the subsectors of digital health receiving those dollars has changed over time. 2021 was the biggest year yet for both digital health investment and M&A deals in healthcare. More than half of the digital health venture deals over the last five years have been early-stage companies. $36B of venture capital was invested in over 1100 early-stage digital health companies in 2021, up from only $4.5B and 332 companies in 2016. This is the first time ever that this exceeds venture investments in biopharma companies.
The class will review customer needs (desirability), business models (viability), legal/regulatory requirements for digital health in the US and abroad (feasibility). Specifically, the course goals are to:
- Evaluate the early stages of company formation and how companies achieve product market fit, not growth and scale.
- Understand the evolution of digital health business models both in a company's growth and as markets change.
- Understand how legal and regulatory requirements shape digital health products and business models.
- Provide you with a framework to assess digital health opportunities.
- Introduce you to digital health entrepreneurs, investors and stakeholders who can provide perspective on early-stage companies and market opportunities.
- Apply your learnings to a real digital health company.
It is recommended that students have taken one of the prerequisite courses or have work experience in health care. A deep knowledge of digital health is not required, but a basic understanding of healthcare is.
