How We Started
Our journey started three and a half years ago when STAT co-inventor, Daniel Lee, tried to measure what was happening with his father, who was experiencing recurrent dizziness, fainting, and falling as a result of his Orthostatic Hypotension. Daniel saw a way to track drops in blood flow to the head with a wearable device. During development of this new-to-the-world technology, we came to understand that in addition to people with Orthostatic Hypotension, millions of others were struggling with blood flow drops to the head during upright posture, including people affected by POTS, Dysautonomia, ME/CFS, and Long COVID.
Background
For millions of people, unexplained dizziness, brain fog, and debilitating fatigue are a reality of everyday life. The problem is, existing metrics like Blood Pressure and Heart Rate often can’t tell anything is wrong. Most of these symptoms aren’t easily measurable. Because there’s a lack of objective data, many are often told “it’s just all in your head.” Ironically, it is in your head, literally - poor blood flow to the head is the root cause of many of these symptoms.
Doctors at top institutions like Harvard Medical School and Johns Hopkins have proven this by measuring abnormal Cerebral Blood Flow changes upon standing in POTS, Dysautonomia, Orthostatic Intolerance, ME/CFS, and Long COVID.1,2,3 However, the ultrasound techniques are highly specialized, and only a few institutions can conduct them. Many patients are left trying to make sense of it all on their own. That’s where STAT comes in.
Our Mission
Millions of people live with debilitating symptoms of Orthostatic Intolerance from POTS, Dysautonomia, Long Covid, ME/CFS and many other conditions, and yet the core problem of their chronic illness -- a drop in blood flow to the head during upright postures -- has never been broadly understood by the medical establishment. What's even more surprising is that restoring that blood flow has never before been the key objective of treatments and interventions for these patients. The current standard of care is often aimed at treating the easily measurable vital signs like heart rate or blood pressure, but fixing these does not necessarily improve quality of life. At STAT, it’s our mission to educate and empower people with stunning new insight into the very heart of the problem -- in their head.
Who We Are
The Founders
Daniel Lee
Co-founder & CEO
Inventor of Bose sleepbuds. Previous startup, Hush, launched on Kickstarter, shipped 15k units, then was acquired by Bose to relaunch Hush as Bose sleepbuds. Led Bose’s Health Product Innovation Group after shipping sleepbuds at scale. Deep expertise in engineering ultra miniature in-ear health wearables.
Paul Jin
Co-founder & COO
Serial entrepreneur with 10 years of experience leading medical ultrasound systems at Philips Healthcare. Co-led Bose’s Health Product Innovation Group with Daniel.
The Team
Josh Minuskin
Software & Employee #1
Milena Quinci
User/Clinical Research
Gregory Kaiser
Mechanical
Selina Zhu
Platform Exploration
Zemichael Tesfaye
Software/Mobile
Cindy Hou
UX/UI Design
Utsav Gupta
Electrical
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Maggie Wyman
Manufacturing
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Steven Rich
Mechanical
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Shivani Ugrin
Content Strategy & Community
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Simon Mbugua
Cloud Architect & DevOps
Our Scientific Advisory Board
Bruce Rosen, MD, PhD
Laurence Lamson Robbins Professor at MGH; Vice Chair for Research at MGH Radiology; Professor at Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology
Doug Biehn
CCO at Cala Health; Former EVP at iRhythm; Former COO at AliveCor; Former CMO at Blue Shield of California
Hari Tandri, MD
Cardiologist at Johns Hopkins / Vanderbilt
Marat Fudim, MD
Cardiologist at Duke
Rajiv Doshi, MD
Professor, Stanford BioDesign
Adjunct Professor of Medicine, Stanford
Adjunct Professor of Medicine, Stanford
Satish R. Raj, MD, MSCI, FHRS, FRCPC
Cardiologist at University of Calgary; Founder of the Calgary Autonomic Investigation & Management Clinic
Patient Advisory Council
We've assembled a Patient Advisory Council, with each member deeply affected by orthostatic conditions and complex overlapping comorbidities: Dysautonomia, POTS, Long COVID, ME/CFS, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, Autoimmune Disease, Small Fiber Neuropathy, and more.
As people living with these conditions, they will help us navigate business and product decisions with a “microscopic” view. We’ll combine their voices with surveys from our customers representing a “macroscopic” view to ensure we spend our time prioritizing the features that are most helpful to the most people!
Kirsten Edwards
Ja'Mia Hewitt
Maya Lindemann
Nicole Funk
Erin Stafford
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Nate Bresnick
Maureen Oakes
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Jennifer Samghabadi
Our Team
Daniel Lee
Co-founder & CEO
Paul Jin
Co-founder & COO
Joshua Minuskin
Software/Algorithms
Milena Quinci
User/Clinical Research
Gregory Kaiser
Mechanical
Selina Zhu
Platform Exploration
Zemichael Tesfaye
Software/Mobile
Cindy Hou
UX/UI Design
Utsav Gupta
Electrical
Maggie Wyman
Technician
Steven Rich
Mechanical
Bruce Rosen, MD, PhD
Laurence Lamson Robbins Professor at MGH; Vice Chair for Research at MGH Radiology; Professor at Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology
Doug Biehn
CCO at Cala Health; Former EVP at iRhythm; Former COO at AliveCor; Former CMO at Blue Shield of California
Hari Tandri, MD
Cardiologist at Johns Hopkins / Vanderbilt
Marat Fudim, MD
Cardiologist at Duke
Rajiv Doshi, MD
Professor, Stanford BioDesign
Adjunct Professor of Medicine, Stanford
Adjunct Professor of Medicine, Stanford
Timeline
- April 2020 - Company founded in Paul’s basement and Daniel’s garage.
- June 2020 - Raised $1.1M Investor funding to build proof of concept
- August 2020 - Completed first “Hat” prototype
- September 2020 - First-in-human testing using hat prototype on family and friends
- April 2021 - Completed second “Behind-The-Ear” prototype
- September 2021 - After a deep literature review combined with ample listening to patients and doctors, we committed to building self-management app for Orthostatic Intolerance as company’s first priority
- November 2021 - Demonstrated Feasibility of Ultra-Miniature Solar Harvesting technology
- December 2021 - Demonstrated Feasibility of 24/7 In-Ear Wearability with testers wearing for 1 month continuously while mostly forgetting it was in-ear.
- January 2022 - Graduated from Daniel’s garage to an office building planned for demolition.
- March 2022 - First IRB-approved study using simultaneous Cerebral Blood Flow Monitoring (TCD ultrasound) + Continuous Blood Pressure Monitoring
- May 2022 - First In-Hospital usage of Behind-The-Ear prototypes during Johns Hopkins Tilt Table Testing
- June 2022 - Renamed company from “Pre Health” to “STAT Health”
- August 2022 - Began Clinical testing at Duke comparing STAT against simultaneous Cerebral Blood Flow monitoring (TCD ultrasound) + Continuous Blood Pressure Monitoring during Tilt Table Testing
- December 2022 - Raised $4M in Investor funding off initial clinical results in order to go faster. Grew team from 3 to 12 people.
- January 2023 - Began take-home prototype testing using “Behind-The-Ear” prototype.
- March 2023 - Published first peer-reviewed article in JACC: Electrophysiology Journal.
- May 2023 - Completed “Fully-In-Ear” prototype with all hardware functionality. Demonstrated feasibility of extreme electronics miniaturization.
- June 2023 - Launched out of “stealth” mode.
- October-November 2023: 30 day crowdfunding campaign
- October 2023-March 2024: Multiple In-Lab (Boston) and Take-Home Testing using “Fully-In-Ear” prototypes.
- TODAY
- April-October 2024 (estimate): Beta Customer Testing (500 units) to mature product experience through iteration. Estimating 3-6 months of Beta.
- July-October 2024 (estimate): Early Bird Limited. Will only be shipped once Beta Customer testing proves product experience is sufficiently mature.
- October-December 2024 (estimate): Crowdfunding Specials. Will be shipped ~3 months after Early Bird Limited ships.
- 2025 (estimate): Attain FDA approval for STAT to be used as a take-home diagnostic that can replace Tilt Table Testing
- 2026++ (low-confidence estimate): Prove to Health Insurers that STAT is medically necessary, and that providing STAT to patients reduces unnecessary Healthcare Utilization/Cost, and improves Quality of Life. The end goal being insurance coverage so that STAT is more accessible for patients.
Long Term Vision
While we're initially focused on creating a consumer digital health app that enables better self-management of symptoms to improve quality of life, our long-term vision is to increase accessibility by being a regulated medical device that is covered by health insurance. This is why we’re continuing to conduct validation research with top research institutions to one day be used both as a reimbursed remote patient diagnostic (akin to Holter Monitors but for Orthostatic Intolerance instead of arrhythmias) and as a reimbursed medical monitor (akin to Continuous Glucose Monitor). We're committed to helping the millions of those suffering from these conditions, and it is clear to us that insurance coverage is the only way we’re going to reach the majority of the people we want to help!
But we’re still at stage 1 of this multi-stage journey, and we're inviting you to join us in our journey. Pre-order today and join us in transforming how orthostatic syndromes are managed. Plus, get never-again specials for being an early adopter!
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