26: Andy Coravos — A Brave New World of Digital Medicine

Welcome back to Flux! In this episode I talk with Andy Coravos the co-founder of Elektra Labs, which is building a future of digital medicine that's data-driven and secure. Recently we’ve seen an explosion of wearables and sensors in healthcare. How accurate are these monitoring tools? How secure are they from hackers? Elektra is cataloguing these distributed devices and has created benchmarks for pharmaceutical companies, doctors and device makers. We're also now seeing the advent of digital therapeutics such as video games that help treat ADHD or PTSD. Is the FDA equipped to respond to these changes? How will doctors and pharmacies prescribe digital medicine?    Andy shares her thoughts on the FDA and what she feels is the balance between proper regulation and advancing progress. She discusses what wearables she personally is comfortable using and why a Hippocratic Oath for devices is important. Andy tells me about her family of tinkerers and inventors, why she finds meditation critical, and how she got the courage to jump from private equity to startups.    Full transcript on Medium. This episode was produced by Daniel Bouza.