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Big Picture Medicine

Big Picture Medicine

By Mustafa Sultan, MD

The health entrepreneurship podcast — focusing on big picture stuff.

Interviews with health/biotech entrepreneurs and leaders having impact at scale. Health stuff a techbro/sis would find interesting. Think health meets the Tim Ferriss Show.

Get in touch: pod@musty.io

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#032 AI, Academia and Business — Prof Geraint Rees (Pro-Vice-Provost AI at UCL)

Big Picture MedicineSep 27, 2020

00:00
34:05
#130 Kaia Health, Raising $125M By Turning $50,000 Elite Pain Rehab into an App (CEO, Konstantin Mehl)

#130 Kaia Health, Raising $125M By Turning $50,000 Elite Pain Rehab into an App (CEO, Konstantin Mehl)

Konstantin started Kaia Health after paying $50,000 to cure his back pain at an elite pain rehab centre. It worked. But it seemed stupid. Why did this need to cost $50,000?


Kaia Health has since raised $125M and helped 625,000 users.


0:00 The 90 second story

1:22 How did he grow 20% every week?

2:15 Market timing is everything

7:43 We never put pressure on this making any money

10:51 How does an app cure back pain?

14:43 US vs Germany for digital health entrepreneurs

16:40 Go to market of Kaia Health

19:51 Why raise so much money?

24:57 The hero license


Links

Kaia Health: https://kaiahealth.com/

Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Mar 24, 202429:53
#129 Jon Ronson on Writing, Hustle and the Psychopath Test

#129 Jon Ronson on Writing, Hustle and the Psychopath Test

Jon Ronson is one of the most interesting people alive today — period. He’s the author of the Men Who Stare at Goats, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed and The Psychopath Test — which spent 10 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. His two Ted talks have been watched 20 million times, his books have been brought to life by George Clooney on the big screen, he has written screenplays for Netflix blah blah blah. Don’t believe me, listen to a pitch Jon wrote for ‘the Psychopath Test’. If you are not dying to hear what happens next — then, I don’t what to tell you…


0:00 Jon's pitch for the Psychopath Test

1:41 Jon's story

6:00 Strategies Jon used to bypass career gatekeepers

7:03 Would Jon Ronson be on Substack/podcasting

12:05 Does Jon Ronson pay attention to analytics? Post mortems

16:26 Startup philosophy applied to storytelling

19:08 Writing Advice from Tim Ferriss: Jon's opinion on doing interesting things to write better

24:59 Does Jon Ronson like being famous?

28:49 Analysis of 'The Psychopath Test' pitch to Ira Glass

37:30 Should you make decision based on what would be a good story

38:48 Jon Ronson's habits for creative success

Feb 04, 202443:21
#128 AgeTech: Shopify vs Amazon Model — Birdie CEO, Max Parmentier

#128 AgeTech: Shopify vs Amazon Model — Birdie CEO, Max Parmentier

Max Parmentier is the CEO of Birdie, a Series B AgeTech startup who have raised $52M from the likes of Sofina, Omers Ventures and Index Ventures — and captured 10% of the UK market whilst currently scaling into Europe.

0:00 Intro

2:37 Shopify vs Amazon model in AgeTech

7:26 Product pivots: D2C never wins

11:56 Predictive AI AgeTech

13:58 I pitch an idea to Max

19:34 Lessons building Birdie

24:13 Leaving money on the table for purpose


Links

Birdie: https://www.birdie.care/

Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/



Dec 24, 202329:32
#127 Gentle Disruption Wins in Healthcare — DrDoctor CEO Tom Whicher

#127 Gentle Disruption Wins in Healthcare — DrDoctor CEO Tom Whicher

Tom Wicher is CEO of DrDoctor — who have served over 20M patients and just raised £10M in their recent Series A round. But he spent the first 7 years bootstrapping, and diverged from his colleagues: Opting for the slow and steady gentle disruption path. Why?


0:00 Gentle disruption beats move fast and break things

3:36 Picking a problem in healthcare

5:44 Behavioural change theory

7:52 Stop treating patients like kids

10:30 Systems-level efficiency vs personalisation

13:02 Why don't patients show up for their appointments?

16:02 Overbooking: Learning from airlines

18:54 Carrot or stick: Motivating health behaviors

22:35 There's no big conspiracy in healthcare

26:24 PIFU model of patient booking

28:14 Sometime it's better not to empower patients

31:16 Habits/frameworks that have helped Tom succeed


Links

DrDoctor: https://www.drdoctor.co.uk/

Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Dec 03, 202333:60
#126 Drug Discovery is Becoming More $$$ — Here's Why, And The Startup Fixing It (Lindus Health)

#126 Drug Discovery is Becoming More $$$ — Here's Why, And The Startup Fixing It (Lindus Health)

Drug discovery is becoming more expensive and producing less results than ever before (Eroom's Law)—why? One of the ballooning costs are clinical trials. Pharma/biotech often outsource their trials to CROs (contract research organisations). But many CROs are incentivised to make trials as bloated and inefficient as possible. That means more money and less results. Meri Beckwith is building the anti-CRO: Lindus Health—to solve this problem.


0:00 Intro

1:39 The big problem in drug discovery

4:10 Why do CROs exist?

7:24 The incentive problem in drug discovery/CROs

10:57 Pharma are anti-startups

12:11 How much a clinical trial costs

15:11 How can you compete with big CROs?

17:26 Are you going to build your own drug pipeline?

18:56 Lessons from VC to Founder

23:42 Brand/PR/Positioning as a biotech startup

29:03 Billion dollar ideas in bio/health

31:33 Habits that have helped Meri

Links

Lindus Health: https://www.lindushealth.com/

Meri Beckwith: https://twitter.com/meribeckwith

Mithi Thaya: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mithi-thaya/

Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Oct 31, 202335:59
#125 The $350M Startup Creating Perfect Memory (Rewind.ai — CEO Dan Siroker)

#125 The $350M Startup Creating Perfect Memory (Rewind.ai — CEO Dan Siroker)

Rewind.ai just raised their Series A at a valuation of $350M. Investors include Andreesen Horowitz, Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian and OpenAI’s Sam Altman. Rewind sits on your computer and phone, and watches everything you do. Then you can ask it questions like: What was that really great Mediterranean recipe I looked at last month? Or I’ve got a call with a client next week, can you summarise every interaction I’ve had with them? But here’s where it becomes even weirder, powerful. They’ve announced the Rewind Pendant, a small audio recorder that sits on your chest. Rewind will be able to listen in to every conversation you have. You can ask it: What birthday present should I get for my partner? Did they drop any hints? Or how many arguments did we have last year? Pretty Black Mirror, right? Once you get over the ick however, you realise that this is correcting a lagging human function. Just like the cursed amongst us wear glasses; tools like Rewind will repair our broken memories. I spoke to Dan Siroker, Rewind’s founder— 0:00 Intro 1:54 Lessons from the Obama Campaign 3:28 How to use science to make your startup succeed 8:21 Privacy concerns 17:00 Rewind.ai as a brain-computer interface (BCI) 20:27 Forgetting is important for human wellbeing 22:26 Societal impacts of perfect memory 28:42 Rewind's tech stack 31:56 The existential risk of startups using GPT 35:21 D2C is harder than B2B 37:49 Leadership lessons 40:31 Perils of being a second time founder 46:44 Is any publicity good publicity? Links Rewind: https://www.rewind.ai/ Dan Siroker: https://twitter.com/dsiroker Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Oct 24, 202349:57
#124 Wearable Data is Bullsh*t Debate — Maitham Dib (Vital YC21)

#124 Wearable Data is Bullsh*t Debate — Maitham Dib (Vital YC21)

People are wearing Apple Watches to their wedding days. Has this whole 'quantified self' movement gone bananas? Is any of this data actually useful? I spoke to Maitham Dib about this. He's building Vital (YC21); a startup which makes all wearable/lab data available to other startups/companies. 0:00 Wearable data is mostly useless 3:22 The case for wearable data 6:37 Wearable data is mostly useless 8:06 Wearable data is useful 10:16 The big opportunity with wearable/lab data (startups) 14:15 Naivety as a superpower (Paul Graham) 15:45 Why building Vital is so hard 19:31 Pros/cons of an infrastructure play in healthcare 20:51 How to enterprise sales 24:09 Lessons from YCombinator 27:32 The benefits of being an immigrant Links Vital: https://tryvital.io/ Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Sep 20, 202329:21
#123 How To Write Killer Healthcare Content — Healthcare Huddle (acquired by Workweek)

#123 How To Write Killer Healthcare Content — Healthcare Huddle (acquired by Workweek)

Dr Jared Dashevsky writes Healthcare Huddle (acquired by Workweek). He's scaled to over 30,000 subscribers. And it was pretty simple.

Here are 12 frameworks that work for healthcare content creation (and mistakes to avoid).

0:00 Intro

1:14 Consistency is king; systematise it

7:40 McKinsey reverse pyramid principle for writing

9:10 You need to have a unique/controversial take

11:41 Content for network building

15:51 Lean startup thinking does not work for content

20:35 Nobody cares about errors

25:52 Injecting personality is a competitive advantage

29:32 Boring content will make you rich

34:13 Don't make a useless audience; acquire data

41:19 Lessons from Jerry Springer

45:18 Hyperoptimisation paradox

48:49 Do things that don't scale

Links

Healthcare Huddle: https://workweek.com/brand/healthcare-huddle/ Dr Jared Dashevsky: https://twitter.com/jareddashevsky Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Sep 15, 202352:20
#122 Why AI Drug Discovery Is So Hard — Dr Imran Haque (Recursion)

#122 Why AI Drug Discovery Is So Hard — Dr Imran Haque (Recursion)

Despite $billions of investment into the sector — there are still no AI discovered drugs on the market. Why? Recursion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: RXRX) is one of the hottest AI drug discovery companies on the market. Especially after NVIDIA's $50M investment into them. Dr Imran Haque (SVP of AI and Digital Sciences) explains why AI drug discovery is so tricky — and when it's arriving. 0:00 Intro 0:42 Decoding biology (the big idea) 2:18 Why is AI drug discovery harder than it looks? 4:48 Simulating the Sims (game) vs AI drug discovery 6:58 Building data for AI drug discovery 14:47 Recursion's successes and failures 24:22 The barriers to AI drug discovery 26:45 How optimistic should we be about AI drug discovery 35:26 Being aggressively generalist for success People Dr Imran Haque: https://www.recursion.com/team-members/imran-haque Dr Imran Mahmud: https://www.imranmahmud.com/ Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Sep 04, 202340:33
🔥 NVIDIA Pumped $50M Into This Startup You've Never Heard Of (TechBio)

🔥 NVIDIA Pumped $50M Into This Startup You've Never Heard Of (TechBio)

0:00 NVIDIA's $50M investment into Recursion Pharmaceuticals 2:28 NVIDIA is becoming a seed investor 3:45 Bull case for Recursion Pharmaceuticals 9:20 Recursion's two big acquisitions 13:05 How are Recursion going to make money? 14:15 Recursion is overhyped 19:45 Recursion is unprofitable 22:21 Kim Kardashian's full body MRI scan 26:03 Longevity doctor's advice to Kim K 31:49 Speculating on Kim K's longevity regime (what she takes) 35:00 Outro and feedback Podcast Links YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@bigpicturemedicine Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/big-picture-medicine/id1500446262 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5707RPmWOJkVZyUHNRSUfS?si=96c7fff6bccb456a People Dr Imran Mahmud: https://www.imranmahmud.com/ Dr Adam Bataineh: https://twitter.com/DrAdamBat / https://numenor.health Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Aug 20, 202337:56
#121 Raising $17M Uber for Medical Scans — Charlie Bullock (Scan.com)

#121 Raising $17M Uber for Medical Scans — Charlie Bullock (Scan.com)

Ever waited months for a scan? Scan.com is making getting a scan as easy as booking an Uber. Behind the scenes of the disruptor changing medical imaging forever. 0:00 Race to the bottom? 1:34 AirBnB 11 star framework 9:57 Scan.com looks really easy to build — what's hard about it? 12:19 Lessons from working at Deliveroo 15:14 How do you make a lot of money? 19:41 Buying the domain name Scan.com 24:16 How to build a marketplace business 27:50 The perils of price transparency 30:36 What I would do to build a competitor 32:43 You need grit when building a health startup 35:46 Billion $ health ideas Podcast Links YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEzluDRmBTVby0WsO37V-xg Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5707RPm... People Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/ Charlie Bullock: https://scan.com/

Aug 09, 202338:47
🔥 What David Sinclair is Hiding From Elon Musk

🔥 What David Sinclair is Hiding From Elon Musk

0:00 David Sinclair's controversial claim 1:39 Bull v bear case 6:23 David Sinclair's history of exaggerating and profiteering 8:34 Adam Neuman's involvement 11:40 Raising from unsophisticated investors 16:30 Why aren't big pharma interested in longevity? 22:45 Cynics are right, optimists get rich 25:26 Will a longevity drug be the most valuable therapeutic ever made 28:52 Feedback and outro David Sinclair's Tweet: https://twitter.com/davidasinclair/status/1679178670743732249?s=20 David Sinclair's Research Paper: https://www.aging-us.com/article/204896/text Elon Musk Tweet: https://twitter.com/davidasinclair/status/1679504700285104129?s=20 Dr Charles Brenner's Critique of Sinclair: https://twitter.com/CharlesMBrenner/status/1679213673771057152?s=20 Podcast Links YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@bigpicturemedicine Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/big-picture-medicine/id1500446262 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5707RPmWOJkVZyUHNRSUfS?si=96c7fff6bccb456a People Dr Imran Mahmud: https://www.imranmahmud.com/ Dr Adam Bataineh: https://twitter.com/DrAdamBat / https://numenor.health Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Aug 01, 202333:44
🔥 Regulators Hate Doctor ChatGPT (Here's Why) — Dr Hugh Harvey (Hardian Health)

🔥 Regulators Hate Doctor ChatGPT (Here's Why) — Dr Hugh Harvey (Hardian Health)

0:00 Why not let the builders build? Move fast and break things?

1:56 Why don't you ban people from googling their symptoms?

3:28 Is a disclaimer enough?

5:27 Why are LLMs difficult to regulate?

10:13 Move fast and kill patients — principal agent problem

12:23 People aren't idiots (they are)

14:20 Dr ChatGPT will never work

17:35 Spotting bubbles in healthcare

19:20 How much time does regulation add onto medical device approval?21:40 Can we ever regulate LLMs?


Podcast Links

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@bigpicturemedicineApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/big-picture-medicine/id1500446262

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5707RPmWOJkVZyUHNRSUfS?si=96c7fff6bccb456a


People

Dr Hugh Harvey: https://www.hardianhealth.com/ Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Jul 23, 202323:50
🔥 Spotify Founder's Longevity Startup: Bear v Bull Case (Neko Health)

🔥 Spotify Founder's Longevity Startup: Bear v Bull Case (Neko Health)

Daniel Ek (Spotify Founder) has raised $65M for his new longevity startup: Neko Health. 0:00 What is Neko Health 2:18 They're doing nothing new 5:33 The bull case; why it's going to be huge 7:47 How are they possibly going to make money!? 18:30 Why aren't they doing full body MRI? 20:26 The bear case; why this will fail 25:13 Smells a bit hypey 29:15 The risks of longevity startups and early testing 35:41 The lowdown 37:47 Unexpected way of making $$$ 40:00 Outro and feedback Podcast Links YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@bigpicturemedicine Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/big-picture-medicine/id1500446262 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5707RPmWOJkVZyUHNRSUfS?si=96c7fff6bccb456a People Dr Imran Mahmud: https://www.imranmahmud.com/ Dr Adam Bataineh: https://twitter.com/DrAdamBat / https://numenor.health Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Jul 10, 202342:55
🔥 Apple's Plan to Dominate Healthcare (And Why It Will Fail)

🔥 Apple's Plan to Dominate Healthcare (And Why It Will Fail)

0:00 Leaked secret Apple health report

5:06 What Apple are up to in healthcare

9:21 Decentralised clinical trials

11:35 Apple healthcare leaked documents controversy

15:38 Apple is going to become a health insurer

23:07 Imran's advice to Tim Cook

26:11 Being a healthcare provider is unprofitable

28:12 Apple will make a longevity/subscription health play

30:27 Outro and feedback


Links mentioned

Apple Struggles in Push to Make Healthcare Its Greatest Legacy (Wall Street Journal): https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-struggles-in-push-to-make-healthcare-greatest-legacy-11623832200

Podcast Links

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@bigpicturemedicineApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/big-picture-medicine/id1500446262

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5707RPmWOJkVZyUHNRSUfS?si=96c7fff6bccb456a

People

Dr Imran Mahmud: https://www.imranmahmud.com/

Dr Adam Bataineh: https://twitter.com/DrAdamBat / https://numenor.health

Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Jul 03, 202334:10
#120 Billion $ Healthtech 'Soonicorn' Huma: Lessons from Jony Ive and Big Pharma — Dan Vahdat (CEO)
Jun 26, 202339:46
🔥 Beauty and the Bucks: Inside GetHarley's $52M Triumph in Skincare

🔥 Beauty and the Bucks: Inside GetHarley's $52M Triumph in Skincare

0:00 Intro 1:04 The genius business model of GetHarley 5:26 How important is marketing? 50% of revenue 14:57 Why aren't they doing cooler more innovative stuff? 22:38 What verticals would we expand GetHarley's biz model to 24:37 Vitamin vs painkiller 27:49 Why have investors put so much money into GetHarley? 31:00 Feedback and outro Links mentioned GetHarley, a skincare telehealth and consultation platform, raises $52M (TechCrunch): https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/06/get... Podcast Links YouTube:    / @bigpicturemedicine   Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5707RPm... People Dr Imran Mahmud: https://www.imranmahmud.com/ Dr Adam Bataineh: https://twitter.com/DrAdamBat / https://numenor.health Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Jun 19, 202332:21
🔥 News: Pills for Profit — The Dark Side of D2C Health Startups

🔥 News: Pills for Profit — The Dark Side of D2C Health Startups

0:00 Intro

0:20 DEA comes after DTC health startups

3:18 How DTC health startups hacked customer retention

10:30 Will this kill the economics of D2C health startups?

12:57 How would we solve the problem

15:30 New LLM Paper in Nature

28:18 Audience feedback and outro


Links Mentioned

Cerebral Pushed ADHD Prescriptions And Failed To Report Data Breaches, Ex-Executive Alleges In Lawsuit (Forbes): https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiejennings/2022/04/28/cerebral-pushed-adhd-prescriptions-failed-to-report-data-breaches-ex-executive-alleges-in-lawsuit/DEA's proposed telehealth rules pull back COVID-era remote prescribing flexibilities: https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/telehealth/deas-proposed-telehealth-rules-tighten-covid-era-remote-prescribing-regulations

DEA extends telehealth prescribing flexibilities for 6 months: https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/telehealth-providers-cheer-dea-moves-temporarily-extend-virtual-prescribing

Health system-scale language models are all-purpose prediction engines (Nature): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06160-y

Podcast Links

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@bigpicturemedicine

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/big-picture-medicine/id1500446262

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5707RPmWOJkVZyUHNRSUfS?si=96c7fff6bccb456a


People

Dr Imran Mahmud: https://www.imranmahmud.com/

Dr Adam Bataineh: https://twitter.com/DrAdamBat / https://numenor.health

Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Jun 13, 202333:31
#119 The Unusual Path to Make a Billion $ Men's Health Startup — Numan CEO (Sokratis Papafloratos)
Jun 05, 202353:15
🔥 News: The Rise and Demise of Babylon Health
May 17, 202329:45
🔥 News: VC Dirty Money and Trillion $ Alzheimer's Opportunity
May 12, 202332:21
🔥 News: ChatGPT vs Doctors: Who Will Win?

🔥 News: ChatGPT vs Doctors: Who Will Win?

Papers Mentioned—

ChatGPT better + more empathetic than human doctors (JAMA Int Med Paper): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2804309

Detecting eye disease using AI (Nature Biomedical Engineering): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-022-00867-5

Predicting dementia using LLMs (PLOS Digital Health): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36812634/

AI recognises race from black and white X rays (Lancet Digital Health): https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(22)00063-2/fulltext

VC dirty money article: https://sifted.eu/articles/founders-vc-dirty-money


0:00 Intro 0:30 ChatGPT vs Doctors (JAMA Paper) 15:57 AI Better at Diagnosis than Doctors 30:57 Dirty VC Money 32:02 Audience Feedback Joined by: Dr Adam Bataineh: Longevity doctor and Co-founder Span Health (acquired by EightSleep). Dr Imran Mahmud: Investor, Oxford-trained doctor, ex-Mckinsey and Co-founder of NYE Health. Dr Mustafa Sultan: Creator of Big Picture Medicine and Doctor.

May 04, 202334:13
🔥 News: It’s Time to Build in Healthcare (a16z) and Why are VCs Miserable?

🔥 News: It’s Time to Build in Healthcare (a16z) and Why are VCs Miserable?

0:00 Intro

0:32 Why are VCs so unhappy?

2:18 What’s hard about being a VC?

3:56 Hustle culture, FOMO, always-on culture in VC

9:54 Is it ever easy to become rich?

12:22 It’s time to build in healthcare

15:31 Why is healthcare so hard for big tech?

17:31 Reasons why healthcare is easier than you think

21:04 Imposter syndrome for tech people entering healthcare

24:03 Would you build another healthcare startup?

25:12 Outro


Joined by:

Dr Imran Mahmud: Investor, Oxford-trained doctor, ex-Mckinsey and Co-founder of NYE Health. 

Dr Mustafa Sultan: Creator of Big Picture Medicine and Doctor.

Apr 26, 202327:03
#118 Martin Shkreli on Drug Pricing, Being Hated/Rich and His GPT-4 Doctor

#118 Martin Shkreli on Drug Pricing, Being Hated/Rich and His GPT-4 Doctor

Martin Shkreli is an American Investor, Pharmaceutical Executive and Hedge Fund Manager who became the most hated man in America in 2015 when he obtained the drug Daraprim and increased its price from $13.50 a pill, to $750 overnight.


0:00 Intro

1:56 The Big Short

8:04 How to price a drug

20:01 Should we price drugs like iPhones

25:36 Pharma's dirty secret with R&D spend

34:12 Why are we not discovering more drugs? Eroom's Law

43:59 Marting's new AI Doctor — Dr Gupta

51:08 What's the FDA going to say?

53:26 Problems with GPT-4; hallucinations and sources

1:00:00 Mental health impact of being the most hated man in America

1:02:30 How rich are you?

1:08:00 Outro


Daraprim is used to treat or prevent parasitic diseases, commonly in patients with HIV or AIDS.

He defended the move by saying “If there was a company that was selling an Aston Martin at the price of a bicycle, and we buy that company and we ask to charge Toyota prices, I don't think that that should be a crime.”

Unrelated to the Daraprim scandal, in 2017 he was charged with securities fraud and sentenced to seven years in prison and fined a total of over $70M dollars.

Martin comes from humble beginnings, his parents are Albanian immigrants — but he quickly ascended the world and became a multimillionaire polymath. And despite having no formal training in Medical Sciences — he has a penchant for consuming medical literature from PubMed, and making novel insights.

We talk about how Martin does this, his philosophy around drug pricing — and whether we should think about pricing drugs in the same way we price iPhones, we talk about whether blowing more money into pharma research & development actually leads to more exciting drugs, Martin’s new AI doctor that he just launched and the mental health impact of being the world’s most hated man.


You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Apr 24, 202301:08:18
#117 Dr Ben Maruthappu On Raising $400M for Cera Care

#117 Dr Ben Maruthappu On Raising $400M for Cera Care

Dr Ben Maruthappu is the the Co-founder and CEO of Cera Care; a digitally-enabled social care company which has raised over $400M dollars. He was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2020.

0:00 Intro

0:47 Ben's story

6:10 How to have good ideas, at the right time

12:14 Good decisions Ben made with Cera to scale

21:07 Is the US greener pastures?

28:10 What healthtech can learn from fintech, ridesharing and food delivery

30:17 Anti-lessons from other industries

33:53 How do you stop driving becoming toxic

36:13 Are founders olympic athletes who don't deserve work-life balance?

38:31 Are you full of sh*t? What are your real motives?

41:19 Are successful founders happy people?

43:30 Mo money mo problems

46:51 The power of vulnerability vs the magnetism of certainty

52:21 Networking advice

You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Apr 16, 202355:21
#116 Be Bombastic To Get Ahead — Dr Ala Alenazi (Ascension VC)
Apr 05, 202337:38
🔥 News: AI Too Powerful? Peter Attia's Longevity Bible and Why Are Americans Dying So Young?

🔥 News: AI Too Powerful? Peter Attia's Longevity Bible and Why Are Americans Dying So Young?

0:00 Intro

0:54 Is AI Too Powerful?

17:59 Outlive, Peter Attia's New Longevity Bible

45:16 Why Are Americans Dying So Young?


Joined by: 

Dr Adam Bataineh: Longevity doctor and Co-founder Span Health (acquired by EightSleep). 

Dr Imran Mahmud: Investor, Oxford-trained doctor, ex-Mckinsey and Co-founder of NYE Health. 

Dr Mustafa Sultan: Creator of Big Picture Medicine and Doctor.

Apr 03, 202351:18
#115 Think Like a Doctor to Make Executive Decisions — Dr John Whyte (Chief Medical Officer, WebMD)
Mar 27, 202330:33
🔥 News: Microsoft's GPT-4 Healthcare Play and Self-Driving Drug Development

🔥 News: Microsoft's GPT-4 Healthcare Play and Self-Driving Drug Development

0:00 Intro

1:00 AI drug development

7:04 Big picture impact of AI drug development

9:14 Counterintuitive facts about drug development

11:06 Why can't we just make novel drugs with AI? Biology is hard

19:06 Microsoft's GPT-4 healthcare play

26:48 The hardest thing about health startups

31:49 Outro


Joined by: 

Dr Adam Bataineh: Longevity doctor and Co-founder Span Health (acquired by EightSleep). 

Dr Imran Mahmud: Investor, Oxford-trained doctor, ex-Mckinsey and Co-founder of NYE Health. 

Dr Mustafa Sultan: Creator of Big Picture Medicine and Doctor.

Mar 24, 202332:49
#114 Alexa for Doctors — Dr Shiv Rao (CEO Abridge)
Mar 17, 202332:53
🔥 News: Semaglutide (Wegovy) TikTok Conspiracy, Alcohol Disruptor and Where Are the UK Healthtech Exits?

🔥 News: Semaglutide (Wegovy) TikTok Conspiracy, Alcohol Disruptor and Where Are the UK Healthtech Exits?

0:00 Intro 

1:27 Semaglutide (Wegovy) lowdown, use in longevity clinics 

6:38 Is a 'pill for everything' a bad thing? 

10:39 What's going to happen to all the DTC weight loss startups? 

13:37 Is Semaglutide a TikTok conspiracy by big pharma? 

14:55 The new alcohol-free alcohol, GABA 

21:07 Where are all the big UK healthtech exits? 

24:16 US investors/entrepreneurs are more ambitious 

27:41 Is DTC digital health the way to go? 

32:40 Is there much point building in the UK?  

Joined by: 

Dr Adam Bataineh: Longevity doctor and Co-founder Span Health (acquired by EightSleep). 

Dr Imran Mahmud: Investor, Oxford-trained doctor, ex-Mckinsey and Co-founder of NYE Health. 

Dr Mustafa Sultan: Creator of Big Picture Medicine and Doctor.

Mar 10, 202334:42
🔥 News: David Sinclair's New Startup, Transhumanist Gene Editing to Sleep Less and ChatGPT for Drug Development

🔥 News: David Sinclair's New Startup, Transhumanist Gene Editing to Sleep Less and ChatGPT for Drug Development

0:00 Intro 

1:09 David Sinclair's New Startup  

11:25 ChatGPT for Drug Development 

28:32 Transhumanist Gene Editing to Sleep Less 

37:38 Banter/Audience Feedback  

Dr Adam Bataineh: Longevity doctor and Co-founder Span Health (acquired by EightSleep). 

Dr Imran Mahmud: Investor, Oxford-trained doctor, ex-Mckinsey and Co-founder of NYE Health. 

Dr Mustafa Sultan: Creator of Big Picture Medicine and Doctor.

Mar 03, 202343:35
#113 Mental Models for Health Entrepreneurship — Dr Ignacio Medrano (CEO Savana)
Feb 22, 202346:55
#112 Yelp for Doctors — Dr Stephanie Eltz (CEO Doctify)
Feb 13, 202336:33
#111 Raising $139M, Biotech, Introversion and Happiness — Jason Foster (CEO Ori Biotech)
Feb 09, 202301:09:49
🔥 News: Bryan Johnson's Blueprint, Spotify Enters Health and VitaDAO Raises $4M

🔥 News: Bryan Johnson's Blueprint, Spotify Enters Health and VitaDAO Raises $4M

Dr Adam Bataineh is a Longevity Doctor and Founder of Span Health (acquired by EightSleep). 

0:00 Intro 

0:15 Bryan Johnson's Blueprint Program 

12:32 Spotify's Daniel Ek Enters Healthcare 

22:27 VitaDAO Raises $4.1 (from Pfizer, Balaji Srinivasan...)

Feb 04, 202330:12
#110 Networking, BioSecurity and Generative AI — Morgan Cheatham (VP Bessemer Ventures)
Jan 28, 202340:56
🔥 News: David Sinclair's New Paper, Amazon RxPass, Decline in Disruptive Science and Metformin is the New Birth Control — With Dr Adam Bataineh
Jan 26, 202340:27
#109 Billion $ Health Ideas w/ Dr Chris Lovejoy: Generative AI, DTC Weight Loss + Cross Border Care
Dec 23, 202201:01:42
#108 Why I've Got More Employees than WhatsApp — Dr Anas Nader (CEO Patchwork Health)

#108 Why I've Got More Employees than WhatsApp — Dr Anas Nader (CEO Patchwork Health)

Dr Anas Nader is the CEO and Co-founder of Patchwork Health; an end-to-end workforce solution which helps health systems tackle the staffing crisis. They have raised over $30M.  

0:00 Intro 

0:29 Why Anas has more employees than WhatsApp 

9:24 How to get your product into healthcare providers 

12:38 Business opportunities in health-tech 

15:22 Habits that have helped Anas 

17:11 Similarities between surgical decision-making and startups 

18:21 Resource recommendations 

22:10 Why you need an executive coach  

We talk about why the patchwork  team is bigger than WhatsApp’s, how to get your product into healthcare systems and key decision making frameworks Anas has learned.

You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Dec 01, 202227:04
#107 Fertility-Tech, Cake or Death and Storytelling — Tess Cosad (Co-founder Béa Fertility)
Nov 25, 202232:27
#106 Five TechBio Myths That Must Go — Guillermo Vela (Co-Founder NeuScience)

#106 Five TechBio Myths That Must Go — Guillermo Vela (Co-Founder NeuScience)

Guillermo Vela is the CEO and Co-Founder of NeuScience, a VC-backed TechBio company using AI to discover novel cancer biomarkers.   

0:00 Intro 

0:55 Eroom's Law 

5:37 Contrarian View of Cancer 

15:54 AI Will Not Make Drug Discovery Fast, Better or Cheaper 

26:14 Failing is Not a Good Thing 

26:38 TechBio Funding 

34:07 Habits   

He went viral, in the techbio scene, with his 'Five TechBio Myths That Must Go' article in which he explained why it doesn’t take $2.5bn to develop a drug and why technologies like AI wont’ make drug discovery faster, better or cheaper.  We discuss that article, we discuss Guillermo’s contrarian view of cancer, why we’re doing more science than ever but not seeing results and how his ADD brain is a superpower.  

I hope you enjoy.  

You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Nov 08, 202237:55
#105 The Obstacle is the Way — Dr Ivan Beckley (Co-Founder Suvera Health)

#105 The Obstacle is the Way — Dr Ivan Beckley (Co-Founder Suvera Health)

Dr Ivan Beckley is the Co-Founder of Suvera Health, a Google-backed virtual clinic which has raised over £6M in funding.  

0:00 Intro 

0:42 Ivan's Story 

5:14 Making Cash? 

7:07 Building Suvera 

10:19 Clinician-Product Fit 

11:58 Growing 

14:11 Experience of Feedback 

16:56 Lessons from Google 

19:47 Being Black in Tech 

23:20 Further Growth 

25:36 How Can Someone Move Faster Than You? 

28:45 Habits That Have Helped You?  

Ivan started Suvera whilst in Medical School at UCL — and has since expanded it from a basic app which could help GPs (Primary Care Physicians) complete medication reviews for their patients, to a full fledged virtual care platform for people with chronic illnesses.  

We dig deep into the lessons and habits that have helped Ivan grow Suvera — like how the obstacle is often the way — and how he leans into discomfort as a signal of future success. We speak about how he changed the minds of people who were sceptical of him, how someone building in healthcare today could move faster than him and what it’s like being a black man in healthtech.  

You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Oct 27, 202231:59
#104 Dr Daniel Kraft on the Art of the Possible
Oct 04, 202233:56
#103 Sir Jeremy Farrar on How to Spend £16bn for Good (Director, Wellcome Trust)

#103 Sir Jeremy Farrar on How to Spend £16bn for Good (Director, Wellcome Trust)

How do you spend £16 billion to improve the world’s health?

That is the job of Sir Jeremy Farrar, the Director of the Wellcome Trust. In 1936, British pharmaceutical magnate Sir Henry Wellcome left his fortune to improve the world’s health. Now Sir Jeremy must work out what to do with £16 billion over the next decade — and where to most effectively spend it.

0:00 Intro 

0:47 The Third Role of Philanthropy 

2:53 Appetite for Risk 

5:38 What's Broken in Science Funding 

8:16 Generalism vs Specialism 

10:12 Why Are You Slow? 

14:49 Sexy vs Incremental 

17:04 How Much of Your Job Is Not Messing Things Up? 

19:35 Metrics for Philanthropy 

22:10 Playing the Long Game 

23:20 How Do You Know You're Doing a Good Job? 

28:05 First Become a King, Then a Philosopher (?) 

30:00 Habits That Have Helped In Your Career 

31:52 What's It Like Being Famous? 

33:28 Book Recommendations

By background he is a medical doctor and researcher, he has been named 12th in Fortune’s list of the world’s 50 greatest leaders, served in the UK’s SAGE group and was knighted in 2019 for his services to Global Health.

I ask him about how he spends that money, how to measure philanthropic impact, problems and opportunities within research funding and just how much of his job is just not messing things up.

You can find me on Twitter @MustafaSultan and subscribe to my newsletter on www.musty.io

Sep 29, 202235:32
#102 Angel Investing, Money and Happiness — Dr Imran Mahmud
Sep 13, 202238:56
#101 FashionTech x HealthTech, Finding Purpose and Building Relationships — Dr Ahmed Zaidi
Sep 10, 202239:08
#100 Where This is All Going

#100 Where This is All Going

Thanks for listening.

Sep 06, 202208:27
#099 Paying Indians to be Healthy, Play-to-Earn and the Hybrid HealthTech/FinTech Model — Dr Sandeep Bansal (CEO Carebyte Health)
Aug 30, 202230:16
#098 Frameworks for Success — Dr Molly Gilmartin (AlbionVC)
Aug 05, 202237:55