AWS recently choose Twenty-five startups, three of which are focused on health tech, have committed $30 million to their AWS Impact Accelerator program, which is offered by young startups led by founders from underrepresented groups.
One of the health tech startups is Auburn Health, a San Francisco-based company is developing a digital therapy platform to fight heart disease without the need for drugs or surgery.The platform aims to treat black and brown patients because they are two to four times more likely More people die from heart disease than white patients.
Oben Health was founded in 2020 by Peter Njongwe, who never dreamed he would start a health tech company. He studied Computer Information Systems and Entrepreneurship at Mount Royal University in Calgary and after graduation worked mainly in software development for mobile products.
Two and a half years ago, a personal incident changed his career. Njongwe got a call that his 36-year-old brother had died suddenly and unexpectedly from heart failure. He went to bed one night and never woke up, ruining his family, who knew nothing about their loved one having a heart attack.
Njongwe’s brother didn’t know he was at risk for heart failure, so Njongwe had a personal checkup immediately after his brother’s untimely death. It wasn’t long before he was inspired to create a healing platform to prevent tragic deaths like his brother’s.
“The sad thing about my brother’s death is that it’s not unusual,” he said. “It’s actually pretty common. For me, it’s a very frustrating thing.”
When starting to build Oben Health, Njongwe prioritized building a dedicated brown patients. He says he doesn’t want to fall into the trap of simply using “cultural competence” as a buzzword: He wants to make sure the platform is well researched so that his team can intentionally design it to meet the needs of people of color — in cultural, economic and Geographically.
The app is designed to help users incorporate heart-healthy behaviors into their daily lives. Oben Health made the point after its earlier research showed that touting potential mortality — “if you don’t do X, Y, and Z, you’re going to die” — was not an effective way to get high-risk people to treat theirs Heart health is even more serious. Conversely, if you tell them that high blood pressure is related to erectile dysfunction, or that it prevents them from playing with their kids, they’re more likely to change their routine.
That’s why Oben Health’s app offers interactive tools to track daily habits, as well as healthy sleep and exercise routines designed by cardiologists, therapists, and licensed nutritionists.
To help accelerate the development of the platform, AWS provided Oben Health with $125,000 in cash and $100,000 in AWS credits.The funding — the largest the startup has received to date — comes at a good time as Given that the startup is preparing to launch a pilot project for its app UAB Medicinea health system based in Birmingham, Alabama.
During a 12-week pilot program, Black and Brown UAB patients with high blood pressure or at risk for high blood pressure will have access to the Oben Health app, local health coaches and blood pressure cuffs. The pilot is designed to get patients to pay $100 a month, but Njongwe said the startup is working to secure future payments from health plans.
The AWS funding will help Oben Health take what it learned during the pilot and expand its platform. The grant will allow the startup to hire more health coaches and expand its reach, and support any adjustments made to the platform after the company reviews pilot data to better understand the clinical effectiveness of its models.
Most of the patients currently interested in trying Oben Health’s platform are those who have already been diagnosed with heart disease, Njongwe said. In the future, his goal is to give his company a bigger role in preventive care so that more black and brown people can proactively incorporate heart-healthy behaviors into their daily lives to avoid what happened to his brother tragedy.
Photo: FG Trade, Getty Images
