Live at HLTH: Investing in Transformative Health Technology—featuring Deena Shakir

We recognize that despite the most incredible science and technology, you can develop something transformative, but you're not going to actually reach patients if you can't meet them where they are. And I think that's contributed to a big increase in culturally competent care, in social determinants of health, and in areas like women's health where we realize it's not just about the tech and the science, it's about meeting people where they are.

Join Drs. Jessica Shepherd, Gautam Gulati, and myself, Jordan Schlain, as we embark on a conversational journey with prominent speakers, experts, and innovators from the stages of the annual health conference. The goal is to explore the ideas that put humanity at the front and center of our evolving healthcare system. After all, health is about people, isn't it?

Hi, I'm Dr. Jessica Shepherd. On today's episode, we bring you Deena Shakir, where we discuss the future of the healthcare investment landscape. Deena is a partner at Lux Capital, where she invests in transformative technologies, improving lives and livelihoods. Her investments span stages and sectors covering women's health, digital health, infrastructure, health equity, food tech, and fintech, including notable companies such as Maven Clinic, Everly Health, Galileo, Shiru, and Ramp. Above all, she seeks out extraordinary mission-driven founders. So with that, let's begin the conversation. Welcome to the Official Health Podcast, where we give you the best of what is going on at the conference and also introduce you to new people, new concepts, new innovation in the health and wellness landscape. I am Jessica Shepherd, your host, and today we have a special guest with us, Deena Shakir, who is at Lux Capital, which is a VC firm, but also looking at transforming technologies and how they can improve lives and livelihoods. Thank you for joining us, Deena.

Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Absolutely. Now tell me a little bit about your journey as far as coming into the VC world and specifically for technology in health and wellness space?

Yeah, happy to. It's a bit of an odd one. Didn't grow up thinking I was going to be a VC or that I would do anything remotely related to healthcare, much to the chagrin of my physician father and dentist mother. And like many children of immigrants, almost everyone in my family went down that path. I actually thought I was going to be a journalist, and I did do that very briefly. I also worked in government in the Obama administration. I ended up finding my way into Google in 2012, where I was focused on technology for impact, and so was looking at civic innovation and various other ways in which software could eat the world, but do so in a way that would have a positive social impact. That's how I stumbled into healthcare and helped to build what eventually became Google Health.

Oh, wow.

And I know you just had Missy here before me. Yeah. And so she and I share some interesting history there and different pieces of Google's healthcare journey. But it was that journey that led me to venture. In spending a lot of time at one of the most well-resourced technology companies in the world, recognizing there were some incredible innovations happening outside from early-stage companies with bootstrapped funds and one or two people who could do more than, in many cases, a team with thousands of really talented engineers and endless resources. And that's how I ended up in venture.

Now, at Lux Capital specifically, I've, I've seen, or read rather, that you have a strong desire, feelings, when it comes to women's health. So as a gynecologist who spends all my time with women and the state of their health, especially in, in a climate where it, to me, often seems as women's health is very dismissed. What have you been able to accomplish or, you know, address rather, when we think of women in the US and also the healthcare system?

Oh, my favorite topic. Thank you, Jessica. Well, this is an area where we have prolifically invested. We have, you know, nearly $90 million depending on how you count it. That's focused on women's health that we've invested billions of dollars of value that we've helped to create and unlock their companies like Maven Clinic, who, as you know, just announced their Series E yesterday. We're very excited for the team. They've made incredible progress and still much more to come. Companies like Everly Health that also are, you know, focused on other areas but have a very significant presence in healthcare. Alife, which is transforming IVF care through AI. I'm not sure if you caught the study this morning amidst all the health news, but a new study is showing that we are definitely, definitively in a reproductive crisis. And by 2060, we will, if we don't change things and if we don't, you know, work on transformative technologies to help advance reproductive care, we will be facing a serious population crisis.

Very interesting. I did not get that memo. And I feel that you know, being in the reproductive space, that is one of the things that we combat is fertility. And when we see a shift in age of when women decide that they do want to childbear and those obstacles that come in that decision, whether they decide to do it later and then don't have the recourse or the resources to then accomplish that later, or if we start to see that women have financial barriers that even don't even allow them to access it at all.

Exactly. You know, it's often thought of as a 1% type of problem. That is absolutely not what it is. As I'm sure you know, there is not a racial component or a demographic component. In fact, you know, infertility actually disproportionately affects communities of color, not only in terms of access and cost, but also in terms of delayed diagnoses of diseases. And of course, once you get past the fertility point, the Black maternal health crisis that we are facing in this country.

Right. And that is something that I speak on a lot is that maternal mortality, infant mortality that we see in this country, which is very shocking because we should have the best healthcare in the world, but yet we still have staggering statistics that clearly show us there's a disparity in healthcare and not only with women, but with minority women as well. So over the last few years, you have invested in the 4 startups, which we were mentioning with that cover fertility, pregnancy, parenting care and menopause services. What would you say is your most prized investment over the last few years?

We're not supposed to pick favorites, Jessica. I love all of them.

It's like your children. You're like, I love them all the same.

Exactly. You know, obviously when we're leading investments, we're not going to invest in competing ones. And so I really think that each one of them is a category leader when it comes to integrated women's health. Maven is, is obviously where it's at. I mean, it's an incredible journey from what started as a consumer-facing maternal health app that now does everything from pre-fertility, you know, counseling all the way through menopause, of course, with the maternal health journey being part of it, but also providing care, you know, in the pediatric space to companies like Gameto, which is more on the biotech side and Alife and, and others that are more focused on the actual act of IVF. But there's lots more. I mean, I don't think of women's health in any way as a check-the-box investment. You know, we're investors in Miga Health, which is looking at hypertension and cardiac health, which is another area that has outsized impact on women, especially women of color. And I think it's only just starting to see increased investment in innovation.

Now, femtech, which I guess was coined in 2015, and as a provider, it was very new to the landscape of clinical medicine, still is actually very new. When I go out and speak about femtech, people are still unaware of that term. How have you seen changes in innovation in femtech? And what do you think you see on the horizon and future for femtech?

You know, you may have seen that I have very strong feelings about that word femtech. I prefer not to use it. And there's no perfect nomenclature, you know, unfortunately. But I think femtech in particular sort of relegates women's health to some like frilly pink niche thing, just just the way that the phrase kind of connoted. But notwithstanding the actual term, I think that there are still so many opportunities. Look at the research side of things. On the clinical research side, there are still single-digit dollar, single-digit percentage of dollars that are going into research on women's health conditions. Not to mention the sheer like inequities when it comes to women actually included in clinical trials. I mean, it's crazy to think it's only been a few decades.

We just got there a few decades ago. Right. Still, what's staggering is that heart health, which has a lot of research behind it, but yet we are still seeing that it's still the number one killer of women in the US. So clearly there is a disparity there. And, you know, it's gonna— I feel it's gonna take, you know, a few more years for us to catch up to what those studies are that are going to protect women, especially now that we're just being able to say that hormone replacement therapy is actually helpful versus harmful when in 90s, it was kind of like never touch a hormone.

Yeah.

So we, we are a little bit behind, um, with what are— how do we protect women? First of all, how do we protect women and how do we actually allow them to be at the forefront of research and technology and innovation? And if you're saying that— what did you say, the single-digit percentage? Percentage that's actually put towards that is something that is a little bit defeating sometimes, and I feel that we have the ability to change. Do you honestly feel that when you look at the landscape of VCs or innovation technology, that women's health still is somewhat kept out of the conversation?

You know, I will say it is definitely, definitely changing. When I first started making investments in this space, like, it was still— I mean, Truly, it was still seen as like, oh, cute women's health or, you know, a niche category. You know, not necessarily by all folks, but by a vast majority. And I cannot tell you how many individuals and institutional investors now have entire teams focused on it. There are funds dedicated just to this category, including, you know, some good friends of mine who have raised tens of millions of dollars to put to work there. We have companies like Maven and others that are not just unicorns in terms of valuation, but more importantly, have clinically validated outcomes. That's what it comes down to at the end of the day. It's not just about like how many millions of dollars have been raised, you know, in a time when capital was fairly commoditized or how high valuations are in a period of time where there was a lot of exuberance, but actually how many patients are you touching? How many lives are you improving? And how much engagement have you gotten in the populations that need it most? And that's, I think, where we're just beginning to see more innovation. You know, companies like Cityblock and Waymark in the Medicaid space, an area that Maven is also going into. So, I'm really excited about that.

Now, when you talk about outcomes, one of the kind of great equalizers that we've seen recently is COVID and the pandemic. How do you feel that we are going to see innovation improve? Has it plateaued since then? Are we on a decline? What do you say as we're coming out of the pandemic?

I don't think we're on a decline. I actually think, you know, at this point, a couple years now, I don't want to say post-COVID, a couple of years since COVID how about I say that? I think it's almost, tried to say it, but I still believe it. It really did unlock something that would've taken years otherwise, I think, in the healthcare community in terms of adoption from providers, in terms of researchers understanding, like we could not have gotten to that unprecedented discovery or innovation on the vaccine side if we did not have tools in place, if if we did not have software to help us enable the speed of innovation there, if we did not have the right populations, and if we did not understand how to actually get shots in arms. We recognize that despite the most incredible science and technology, you can develop something transformative, but you're not going to actually reach patients if you can't meet them where they are. And I think that's contributed to a big increase in culturally competent care, in social determinants of health, and in areas like women's health where we realize it's, you know, it's not just about the tech and the science, it's about meeting people where they are.

That is such an important statement, is meeting them where they are. Do you find that you find yourself to be the champion when you're in meetings at a table to be like, but are we really meeting people where they are? Are we really looking at that cultural competency? Because I can't imagine that in some, some of those spaces that, that may be forgotten. Or not discussed. How do you feel about that?

Yeah, you know, I think things are changing. If you look at the backgrounds of some of the most iconic healthcare entrepreneurs I just interviewed on stage yesterday, Anne Wojcicki, obviously Kate Ryder from Maven, and Toyin from Cityblock, and they each talked about their personal journeys. They are not sort of the prototypical, if such a thing exists, healthcare entrepreneur. They each bring their personal experiences, their intersectional backgrounds to what they do. And I think you're actually seeing that reflected as well in terms of the investors. Like myself and others who are coming around the table and the partners, the stakeholders as well. Like, look at the changes that on the C-suite leadership of some of these large national payers, it doesn't look like it did 10 years ago. And that is not coincidence that you're seeing some of these major players and payers partnering with these startups because they see it too. And so I'm actually pretty optimistic here. There's a lot that's severely messed up about our healthcare system, but there's a lot to be really optimistic about right now.

I think that's inspiring because for someone who's in the space to recognize that, I, I, it makes me feel better about, uh, what I think with venture capitalism and the funding that's needed to change healthcare. Healthcare system is very broken right now. I'm optimistic as well. So I wanted to thank you so much for your time here with us and giving us insight to one, hopeful portion of healthcare and, and transforming healthcare to meet the patient where they are. And then also for being such an amazing advocate for women's health. I think that's so important because that is my passion too. And it's nice to see it in another landscape. Before we end, we like to ask our guests questions that are personal so we can know a little bit more about you. Our favorite one to ask is what is your morning routine?

Mornings are a little chaotic in our household. We've got a 5 and 7-year-old. Mama is not a morning person. I've been working on that. But suffice it to say, it is, it is always a struggle in the morning. My morning routine involves waking myself out of bed while somehow trying to inject myself with coffee, waking up both my children who inherited my non-morning person gene, getting them dressed and out the door and to school, and then breathing for a few minutes on my way to the office to start my day. So I'm not going to sugarcoat it. That's the morning routine. I would love to be that person who does yoga and meditates and journals. But that's not me.

We've got a few of those in And then we've had a few of chaotic of like, where's the coffee? Coffee's spilling. And then you get it infused and your day seems a little bit better. And then the next question I would say is, you know, in this journey of, of what you've done over the last few years as a VC is the days that are not so great, what inspires you or motivates you to keep going or pushing towards what you're trying to accomplish?

That's an easy one. Nothing inspires me more than spending time with our founders. It is exactly what I need when I'm having a bad day. You know, I think we obviously pick pretty awesome ones, but starting a healthcare company is sort of an irrational thing to do, right? It doesn't— it's difficult. It's, you know, not like a software SaaS business straight up into the right. So, you really have to have deep passion about doing it and resilience and grit. And that's a thread. If you look at the stories of the founders in our portfolio, all different backgrounds, what brings them to what they're doing is that. So spending time with them is what lifts me up in really difficult times. I've had the great chance of seeing many of them here today at Health.

So yeah, at Health, I think this is— I find it like a, a conference that's a unicorn conference because it really is a conference that really is passionate people who know that is something that is so necessary, needed, and they're willing to push towards it and, and they have that drive and passion. We need those people, especially in the health landscape. So once again, thank you for being on The Official Health Podcast, and I can't wait to follow you and see more about what you're doing in the women's health space.

Thank you. Thank you.

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