a16z Bio + Health

Today, 90%+ of healthcare spend (all $4.5T of it) goes towards treating chronic conditions after someone is sick. Less than 3% of that spend goes towards prevention. @Truemed exists to get more people investing in True Medicine. Exercise, food, supplements, movement, sleep, toxin removal… lifestyle interventions that help people treat and prevent disease, not just treat the symptoms of underlying sickness. We’re building tools that allow qualified individuals to unlock the $160B in tax-free HSA/FSA funds, and use them on these root-cause interventions. Since launching just 2.5 years ago, we’ve helped almost a million individuals pay for these interventions, and we’re just getting started. If we want to fix healthcare in America, we fundamentally have to help Americans get healthier. I’m extremely proud to announce our $34M Series A led by a16z, and am excited to continue our work to end the chronic disease crisis.

Cures are already here -- they just aren’t evenly distributed. Aradigm is changing that. Some of the most innovative, life-saving therapies are also the most expensive. For example, Lenmeldy, a potentially curative therapy for Metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD), carries a list price of $4.25 million per dose, making it the most expensive therapy in the world. Lenmeldy is not an outlier: many cell & gene therapies carry million-dollar price tags for a single dose. Given the current healthcare payment and care infrastructure, the distribution and administration of innovative, life-saving therapies is both incredibly inefficient and a terrible experience for patients and providers alike: 1. Insurance limitations: These therapies generate benefits that accrue over a lifetime, but today the price must be paid upfront 2. Patient access burden: Rounds of prior authorizations and negotiations between care providers and payors delay patient care 3. Care delivery complexity: These curative therapies are expensive to make and complex to administer, requiring heavy oversight from clinicians both pre- and post-administration Aradigm is the infrastructure layer for the cure-based era of healthcare. While traditional employer-sponsored plans treat these life-saving treatments as (very) expensive one-offs, Aradigm is building a care and coverage ecosystem tailor-made for these kinds of breakthroughs. By pooling risks and resources specific to these patients, Aradigm offers economies of scale, domain expertise, and an orchestration layer that traditional models lack. Aradigm ensures patients receive efficient, high-quality access to advanced therapeutic approaches by: 1. aggregating a group of employers and insurers to effectively pool risk and reduce premiums; 2. convening a network of specialized providers and manufacturers to negotiate preferred pricing and financing, and create a shared knowledge-base for both patients and providers, alike; 3. orchestrating all stakeholders through the patient journey in a way that reduces the logistical burden of accessing, administering, and, ultimately, paying for life-saving care. Today, we at @a16z (@julesyoo & I) are excited to congratulate Aradigm on their public launch and Series A financing led by Frist Cressey Ventures along with Morgan Health and us, after we first backed the company at inception here @a16z in 2024. William Shrank, Spencer Carrucciu, Annie Collins, Justus Ruff, & the Aradigm team are uniquely positioned to solve this gap between the fields of bio & health. They’ve developed a first-of-its-kind platform with support of 15 of the nation’s largest employers and six leading payors. We’re proud to continue our partnership as they build the backbone that ensures important therapies are broadly accessible to patients. The cure-based era of medicine needs new infrastructure. Aradigm is building it. a16z.com/announcement/i…

Today we’re launching @CounselHealth to the general public. We believe Counsel is the most advanced combination of medical AI and human doctors in a single interface, and the easiest way to go from “I need advice” to “I’m getting care,” all from your phone. Learn more about Counsel ⏬