Sami Inkinen founded and then exited Trulia about a year after Zillow snapped it up for $3.5 billion in 2014. Hes since moved on to build Virta, a health care startup claiming it can cure type 2 diabetes.
Its a bold claim. Most treatment plans offer to help those with the disease manage it, not get rid of it. But Inkinen, with zero medical background, believes hes found a way to wholly eradicate diabetes for good.
The secret is as simple as a low-carb diet.
It seems pretty obvious cut out the sugar and bad carbs and your diabetes will get better. But thats easier said than done with humans. Inkinen tells me hes learned through time where the pain points are and what people need to truly succeed.
So far Virta has conducted a small trial involving 262 people and the results seem promising. A majority (91 percent) of those participating finished the program and 87 percent of them either reduced their dosage or went off their insulin, says the startup. Over half of the participants were able to reduce at least one of their diabetes medications.
I sat down with Inkinen to talk about his company and why he decided to jump into the health care space after his success in the real estate field.
Founder Sami Inkinen relaxing in the Virta office space in downtown San Francisco.
SB: Thats a bold claim that youre making that you can cure diabetes.
SI: Yeah totallyWithout tech you cant do Virta.
Were not just a software company, were a software company that combines biochemistry and science to cure the disease. If one of those is wrong its not going to work.
SB: Do you worry you tell them a bit too early to get off their medications?
SI: Yeah, thats precisely the reason why we have our own doctors. Thats precisely the reason why we have a full-stack health care companyIts absolutely critical that we get this data very, very rapidly so we can start adjusting them off of meds. If we dont get people off the meds quickly and accurately, its actually dangerous for the patients. When youre diabetic your blood sugar runs high. You take drugs, you get it down. If we can get your blood sugar down naturally and then you take drugs on top of that youre going to be in the ER.
SB: Insurance companies, are you working with them?
SI: Well, they are excited because they can save costs. In America, each state we have who pays your health care. Its either your employer if youre at a large company, and most companies will cover it. So we sell both to employers.
SB: Okay, but this just sounds like a diet.
SI:It sounds very simple. Like, oh carbs are bad throw the carbs out. Yes, but it gets more nuanced. How do you do it in a way that you can reverse the type 2 diabetes and do it in a way thats very sustainable and you feel good about it? Because you know if youre eating bagels and bread all the time and I say just stop doing that, you feel horrible and you dont want to do that.
Its absolutely necessary to deliver results. The traditional approach is that its overweight or obesity that causes diabetes. Therefore all we have to do is help people lose weight. But, its a combination of tech and how we track the markers and the right science nutritionally.
SB: Is that proprietary software that youre using?
SI: Yeah, we build everything in house After the doctor makes all the clinical decisions about the patient, and so forth, what hes looking at is basically a data pool of all the patients every day, several times a day. When he sees the data, he sees that drug for that patient needs to go off.
SB: Couldnt anyone look at it and say, Oh, I can replicate this program?
SI: Well it has the IP. The IP is in two places. One is the protocol that we use, which drives high participation and the results. Its not trivial. It really has to be highly individualized. Whether its food or what you do or how you choose medications, its nothing one-size fits all. Every person is different. Thats the first one.
The second one is this entire system where we collect data and data improves the protocols, this kind of cycle. The more data we have the better the protocol, the better the treatment, the more we can automate, the more efficient we can be.
The way we use software and AI for the benefit of doctors is we basically give them superpowers. We can read all that data on a real-time basis every day of every second and then tell our patients, Okay, Wilma she needs attention. Her, whatever medication she might be on, needs to be reduced.
SB: How do you do that?
SI: What we try to do is take thinking out of the picture for the patients. Every morning that you wake up you have a task to complete. Whether thats tracking related, changing your nutrition, or some behavior change, or something else. We basically stitch together a personalized care plan for each patient based on whats their background and whats happening to them.
You may have heard the Center for Disease Control, CDC, has a diabetes prevention program, which is really a weight loss program. Its basically 16 educational modules over 16 weeksIts kind of like the diet approach, the cookie-cutter approach. You want to do the South Beach Diet, buy the South Beach Diet book and you get the 50 foods that we should eat and the 50 foods you shouldnt.
You cant be successful in curing someones health if you have a one-size fits all approach.
SB: You got involved because you were pre-diabetic.
SI: I was on my way, yes. I was pre-diabetic. You may remember, Ive got a company called Trulia, which just happens to be in this building. Once Trulia went public, I just stayed on the board and I stepped away from an operational role.
I thought maybe Ill start competing and I won the Ironman World Championships in my age group.
(Inkinen has been a competitive triathlete since 2007).
SB: Really?
SI: I was like wow, this is freaking awesome. Then I found out that I was pre-diabetic.
SB: Even after you were very active and athletic?
SI: That was my moment of truth, if you will. I thought, it doesnt make any sense. What we are telling people to do, the message to pre-diabetics today in America is Dont you worry. Youre getting fit but you have to eat a little less, eat a little healthier and exercise a little more everything will be just fine. Well I had been doing that freaking 20 years.
SB: Mm-hmm.
SI:That was the turning point for me. I started reading research and thats what kind of led me to meet my scientific co-founders. The bottom line, what these guys had shown is that there is a way to nutritionally reverse type 2 diabetes without starving you to death. They had published all these papers. I was like this is nuts. This is 30 years-old science.
I said the key thats missing here is we dont have the tech to deliver this, the continuous outpatient services. That was the catalyst for Virta.
Then we kind of built the protocol, built the first product, and then the key step for me was I said we dont want to be another Theranos. In health care, maybe were just shrinking our own pool, but we have to run a clinical trial. If this works, this is going to be absolutely huge.
SB: If an employer wants to get involved with your program, do they just contact you?
SI: Call us up, through our website, and also of course we have our sales as wellOur business model is, if we dont reverse diabetes we dont want to be paid.
SB:When youre saying that you cure it, do you mean that if they switch back to the same old diet they wouldnt have diabetes?
SI: Well type two diabetes is not an acute, like broken bones and then the bone is fixed and then its not broken anymore.
Type 2 diabetes can be reproduced in any one patient. Of course, the subtle lifestyle changes have to last and thats why you want to show that once you cure the disease it actually stays in remission.
SB: Whats the individual cost?
SI:Its about $400 a month. Then low-income people we have patients that use a program that keeps them with access.
SB: So, if the drugs are $500 and this is $400
SI: Yeah so thats the average cost of diabetic medicine in America.
SB: Do they have to stay on the program for life? $400 a month for life?
SI: Its one year minimum and then the second year is up to your choice. Whether you need our support or not.
SB: Whats next?
SI: Theres a couple of big things coming out. One is the one-year results (now out at the time of publishing). Thats one huge thing for usWe can make powerful claims like Hey, the reversal rate is this much, how much we saved money, this is how many lives we saved. These are the results.
Then the second thing that were focused on is just scaling with employers, insurance companies, and patients directly. Letting them know that this works.
Continued here:
Sami Inkinen on his bold plan to cure type 2 diabetes forever ... - TechCrunch
- Fresh health warning over common additive used in thousands of ultra-processed foods including mayo and bread - Daily Mail - April 25th, 2024
- Vertex jumps to TreeFrog to enhance production of Type 1 diabetes cell therapy candidates - FiercePharma - April 25th, 2024
- Spotting the warning signs of diabetes in your pets - CBC.ca - April 25th, 2024
- Lexington-Fayette County health department organizing weekend diabetes awareness expo - WEKU - April 25th, 2024
- Preventive effects of SGLT2 inhibitors on incident hypertension in patients with diabetes who do not have hypertension ... - Nature.com - April 25th, 2024
- Curbing the Price of Novel Diabetes and Obesity Medications - Yale School of Medicine - April 25th, 2024
- Stanford Health closing Livermore Diabetes and Bariatric Center - Pleasanton Weekly - April 25th, 2024
- The association of ALT to HDL-C ratio with type 2 diabetes in 5074 years old adults: a population-based study ... - Nature.com - April 25th, 2024
- VERTEX AND TREEFROG THERAPEUTICS ANNOUNCE LICENSING AGREEMENT AND COLLABORATION TO ... - PR Newswire - April 25th, 2024
- Understanding the Complexity of Hyperglycemic Emergencies: Exploring the Influence of the Type and Duration of ... - Cureus - April 25th, 2024
- What Every Parent Should Know About Raising a T1D Kid - Health Central - April 25th, 2024
- Healthy Living & Diabetes Awareness Fair 2024 - University of New Mexico - April 25th, 2024
- New findings on pancreatic anatomy may affect diabetes research and treatment - Medical Xpress - April 25th, 2024
- The role of yogurt in diabetes and obesity prevention - News-Medical.Net - April 25th, 2024
- How exercising outdoors can prevent depression and diabetes - inews - April 25th, 2024
- Heart of the Valley: Valley woman discusses how she improved her health following diabetes diagnosis - KRGV - April 25th, 2024
- The Right Amount of Sleep Could Help Prevent This Extremely Common Disease - Inverse - April 25th, 2024
- 'Bread and Butter': Societies Issue T2D Management Guidance - Medscape - April 25th, 2024
- She was fired after not endorsing Splenda-filled salads to people with diabetes. Why? - The Guardian - April 25th, 2024
- Glycemic index of diets: importance beyond diabetes control - The Hindu - April 25th, 2024
- 1 woman thought she was destined for diabetes. This 1 realization helped her lose 70 pounds - Yahoo! Voices - March 29th, 2024
- Franciscan Health offering diabetes education at local churches - The Times of Northwest Indiana - March 29th, 2024
- For diabetes patients, needle-free insulin injections are on the way - ScienceBlog.com - March 29th, 2024
- Las Vegas nonprofit hosting health workshop specifically aimed at local Latinos - KTNV 13 Action News Las Vegas - March 29th, 2024
- How Often Do You Really Need to Check Your Blood Sugar Levels? - WSJ - The Wall Street Journal - March 29th, 2024
- Unintended Effects of Caps on Insulin Out-of-Pocket Costs - Managed Healthcare Executive - March 29th, 2024
- Study: Pompe treatment Nexviazyme isn't linked to new or worsening... - Pompe Disease News - March 29th, 2024
- A Smoker With New-Onset Pain in Both Feet - Medscape Reference - March 29th, 2024
- Pre-diabetes leads to Type 2 diabetes; Here's how to prevent and reverse it - WXII12 Winston-Salem - March 29th, 2024
- 'From Interpretation to Action': Using CGM to Manage T2D - Medscape - March 29th, 2024
- March: diabetes-kidney | News and features - University of Bristol - March 29th, 2024
- Health centers attempt to prevent diabetes - WTVM - March 29th, 2024
- Beyond Meat Unveils New and Expanded Line of Beyond Crumbles, Now Certified by the American Heart ... - Yahoo Finance - March 29th, 2024
- Beyond Meat Launches Revamped Plant-Based Crumbles, Earning American Heart and Diabetes Association ... - vegconomist - the vegan business magazine - March 29th, 2024
- Ypsomed hands off insulin pen needle business to focus on smart pump, autoinjector development - Fierce Biotech - March 29th, 2024
- Take the online diabetes test that could help save your life - NBC Connecticut - March 29th, 2024
- Study evaluates the use of tirzepatide in overweight/obese adults with type 1 diabetes - News-Medical.Net - March 29th, 2024
- Risk prediction using genes and gut bacteria can improve early detection of diseases like type 2 diabetes - Medical Xpress - March 29th, 2024
- On a Healthy Vegan Diet, I've Healed My Liver, Reversed Type 2 Diabetes, and Lost 35 Pounds - Forks Over Knives - March 29th, 2024
- Study Links Diet, Diabetes, and Alzheimers - Neuroscience News - March 29th, 2024
- Novo Nordisk Isn't in The "Magnificent Seven," but Here's Why I Think It Should Be - Yahoo Finance - March 18th, 2024
- Doctor warns of strange telltale sign of diabetes which can appear on the legs - The Mirror - March 18th, 2024
- Unraveling the complexities of muscle repair in diabetes: A call for targeted research and therapies - News-Medical.Net - March 18th, 2024
- Popular diabetes and weight loss drugs often hard to get for people who need them - NBC News - March 18th, 2024
- Your Health Matters: The ABCs of diabetes - The Globe | News, weather, sports from Worthington, Minnesota - The Globe - March 18th, 2024
- The Link Between Pancreatic Cancer and Diabetes - Cedars-Sinai - March 18th, 2024
- Nikita Kuzmin diabetes: what was he holding in the CBB house? - Cosmopolitan UK - March 18th, 2024
- FDA Approves Rezdiffra, the First Drug for Diabetes-Related Liver Disease - diaTribe Foundation - March 18th, 2024
- He took up running rather than take diabetes medication. It worked - South China Morning Post - March 18th, 2024
- Can Eating Yogurt Really Reduce Your Risk of Diabetes? - Health.com - March 18th, 2024
- Even short periods of diabetes remission are linked to lower risk of heart attack and stroke - The BMJ - March 18th, 2024
- Kidney stone risk factors and how type 2 diabetes medication may help - WECT - March 18th, 2024
- 'Making the Invisible Visible': CGMs Offer Insights for T2D - Medscape - March 18th, 2024
- Novo Nordisk Discontinues Insulin Medication After Cutting Its Price - The American Prospect - March 18th, 2024
- Infographic: Where GLP-1s Work Now -- and What's Coming - Medscape - March 18th, 2024
- Intermountain Health Experts Say Education Key to Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes | PRUnderground - PR Underground - March 18th, 2024
- International body recommends more sensitive test to indicate risk of developing diabetes - The Hindu - March 18th, 2024
- The importance of knowing your A1C level - KSAT San Antonio - March 18th, 2024
- Tandem Diabetes Care's t:slim X2 Insulin Pump is the First Automated Insulin Delivery System to Integrate with ... - Business Wire - January 9th, 2024
- Diffuse Alveolar Hemorrhage Occurring Suddenly in a Diabetic Patient With Asthma Exacerbation - Cureus - January 9th, 2024
- Virginia Tech researchers find drugs used to treat Type 2 diabetes reduce alcohol cravings - WRIC ABC 8News - January 9th, 2024
- FDA looking into reports of hair loss, suicidal thoughts in people using popular drugs for diabetes and weight loss - CNN - January 9th, 2024
- Glycemic control and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with diabetes and coronary artery disease according to ... - Cardiovascular Diabetology - January 9th, 2024
- Insulin price cap: More Americans will now pay no more than $35 - USA TODAY - January 9th, 2024
- Eli Lilly cracks down on the use of weight loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound for cosmetic reasons instead of for diabetes and obesity - Fortune - January 9th, 2024
- No Increased Risk of Suicidal Ideation With GLP-1 Drugs - Medpage Today - January 9th, 2024
- Ask the Doctors | New research being conducted to treat diabetes - Eureka Times-Standard - January 9th, 2024
- Salivary Chloride Intracellular Channel 1 (CLIC1) as a Hub of Gene-Gene Interactome of Periodontitis With Diabetes ... - Cureus - January 9th, 2024
- Why Omada's CEO Thinks Amazon Selected His Startup as the 1st Partner for Its New Program - MedCity News - January 9th, 2024
- Researchers find drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity reduce alcohol cravings - Medical Xpress - January 9th, 2024
- Randomized open-label trial of semaglutide and dapagliflozin in patients with type 2 diabetes of different ... - Nature.com - January 9th, 2024
- CV Safety Profile of TheracosBio's BRENZAVVY (bexagliflozin) Confirmed in Research Published in Diabetes ... - Business Wire - January 9th, 2024
- 6 "Bad" Fruits You Should Be Eating When You Have Diabetes, According to Dietitians - EatingWell - January 9th, 2024
- Children of Women with Type 1 Diabetes Have Increased Heart Defect Risk - Inside Precision Medicine - January 9th, 2024
- Transforming Corporate Health: Fitterfly's Success in Tackling Diabetes and Weight Issues - Business Standard - January 9th, 2024
- Ozempic and weight loss | News and views - Diabetes UK - January 9th, 2024
- Drugs used to treat Type 2 diabetes reduce alcohol cravings - ScienceBlog.com - January 9th, 2024
- People taking Wegovy and Ozempic have lower risk of suicidal thoughts vs. older drugs, study finds - ABC News - January 9th, 2024
- For Those With Diabetes On Medicare Part D, Insulin Is $35...If Its Covered - Forbes - October 27th, 2023
- Biologist Douglas Melton: I was studying frogs until my son was diagnosed with diabetes then I started looking for a cure - EL PAS USA - October 27th, 2023