Explore every episode of the podcast The Scalpels & Spreadsheets Podcast

Kristen Valdes, Founder & CEO of b.well Connected Health shares her extensive journey in healthcare, highlighting her experiences from being a healthcare executive to founding b.well and more. She shares pivotal moments in healthcare innovation, particularly the impact of interoperability rules and the role of AI in transforming healthcare delivery. Hosted by Vijesh Vijayan.

As part of the Montreal Healthtech Social held on November 27, we were joined by Naomi Goldapple, the Senior Vice President of Data and Intelligence at AlayaCare, where she leads AI and data strategy to transform home healthcare. 

With a non-linear career spanning IBM, multiple startups, and even a community cafe, she’s known for making bold moves that drive real impact in health tech. She talks about the challenges of navigating home healthcare, from workforce shortages to regulations, and how data and AI can improve care, optimize workflows, and make the industry more sustainable. 

Check out AlayaCare: www.alayacare.com

As part of the NYC Healthtech Social held on October 27, Vinodh Balaraman, a serial entrepreneur and Founder of Kolate AI, joined us for a fireside chat on how AI can improve clinical development and drug decision-making. Kolate AI is a precision medicine platform that predicts patient-level clinical events and therapy responses.

The conversation explores why nearly 90% of clinical development fails, how limited visibility into patient responses and enrollment contributes to those outcomes, and how Kolate AI supports pharma and biotech through patient-level prediction, synthetic control arms, and clinical trial screening. Vinodh also shares how these approaches can improve both trials and real-world drug use, and where regulators are beginning to engage with AI-driven methods.

Check out Kolate AI: www.kolate.ai

As part of the NYC Healthtech Social held in October 2025, Jomi Cubol, Head of Design at Photon Health, joined us for a thoughtful conversation on why good design isn’t optional — even in healthcare.

Jomi breaks down how he thinks about design by drawing parallels with the hospitality industry, exploring how empathy, anticipation, and user delight can transform healthcare experiences. He dives into how to think about design, how much design is needed, and why adding a human touch to every step of the process matters more than ever.

Check out Photon Health: www.photon.health

As part of the Ctrl+Cure event held in Toronto August 2025, Mahshid Yassaei Joined us for a powerful fireside chat to share how Tali Ai is using AI to enhance a physician's workflow. 

Mahshid talks about what she things the future of AI scribes looks like, how to navigate among noise and larger incumbents in a competive market and how finding your specific customers can help you grow.

Check out Tali AI: www.tali.ai/

Fireside chat from the She Speaks Health event held in Toronto July 2025.

Caitlin McCabe brings deep expertise in customer success, with a focus on driving growth and long-term retention. She currently leads customer success at one of Canada’s top digital health companies, overseeing enterprise-level partnerships and helping teams scale sustainably by keeping customers engaged.

She’s joined by Neelam Bance, whose career began in pharma and has evolved into a leadership role in precision medicine. At MedGeneius, she’s helping bring pharmacogenetic insights to the forefront of care, supporting hospitals, labs, and providers in reducing adverse drug reactions, improving medication efficacy, and lowering unnecessary healthcare costs.

Together, they unpack the often-overlooked side of scaling a business, retention. Drawing from two distinct perspectives, Caitlin and Neelam share practical lessons from the front lines of growth.

Check out MedGeneius: www.medgeneius.com

Fireside chat from the She Speaks Helath event held in Toronto July 2025.

Francesca Passudetti a senior marketing manager at ALK Canada, where she shapes strategies that bring allergy care innovations to patients and providers. Previously, she was a product manager at Novo Nordisk, leading patient strategy.

She’s joined by Tayler Hoffart, who brings deep experience in business operations and growth across early-stage healthtech companies,most recently helping scale Empathia AI, a company using artificial intelligence to automate medical documentation for clinicians.

In this episode, Tayler and Francesca explore what makes healthcare marketing resonate, how to build trust with different types of customers and the importance of partnerships and collaborations from both a pharmacuetical and healthtech lens.

Check out ALK Canada: www.alk.net/ca

Check out Empathia AI: www.empathia.ai

As part of the She Speaks Health event held in Toronto July 2025, Orchid Jahanshahi delivered a powerful keynote on how Canadians can lead the next big wave in pharma.

Orchid is the founder of ThinkrBelle, an advisory firm bridging pharma and healthtech to drive smarter, faster innovation. With nearly 30 years in global pharma and a successful pivot into AI startups, she brings a rare blend of deep industry experience and startup execution. Orchid is also a mentor at the Creative Destruction Lab, supporting pharma professionals navigating change.

In this episode, Orchid explores what it takes to build your own company, when to take bold risks, and how generalists can turn their skillset into a competitive edge.

Check out ThinkrBelle: www.thinkrbelle.com

In this live panel episode, three leading VCs share how they evaluate and fund companies across healthtech, medtech, and biopharma — from pre-seed through Series C.

Zeeshan Ali (MaRS IAF), Suman Rao (Lumira Ventures), and Timothy Sung (Esplanade Ventures) dive into storytelling for fundraising, what investors are looking for, how to prepare and make the most of your calls with investors, and how to set yourself up for success as a founder.

Whether you’re building or scaling in regulated healthcare sectors, this episode offers clear, practical advice from investors actively deploying capital.

Check out MaRS IAF: www.marsiaf.com

Check out Lumira Ventures: www.lumiraventures.com

Check out Esplanade Ventures: www.esplanadeventures.com

Brian Gordon is the Senior Innovation Advisor at Innovation Canada (part of ISED Canada). Innovation canada works with canadian businesses on scaling within and outside of canada through various programs and non-dilutive funding. Brian has extensive experience helping healthtech and medtech companies grow, in corporate and advisory roles, and shares his insights and advice for current entrepreneurs growing their ventures.

Tune in to hear how to find and apply for grants with Innovation Canada.

 Check out Innovate Canada: www.ised-isde.canada.ca/

Marco Benitez is the CEO & Founder of ROOK. ROOK solves the challenge of wearable health data integration by providing its clients with clean and structured data sets through API. The implications are massive for insurance, digital health and pharmaceutical companies as ROOK enables them to focus on generating value for their end-users.

Tune in to hear about how ROOK is looking to improve predictive and preventative healthcare, how personalized health data can generate value for businesses and end-users, and how ROOK is gearing for long-term growth.

Marco also reflects on experiences from his life that taught him the importance of persistence, discipline and creating a strong network that any entrepreneur can benefit from. Check out ROOK: www.tryrook.io

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Kseniya Ponomareva is the Business Development Manager at EMedSupport. EMedSupport helps physicians make evidence-based decisions to prevent and treat cardiovascular diseases and has offices in Cyprus and the UAE. Kseniya joined EMedSupport about a year ago after having had a career as a Product Manager at Sanofi.

Kseniya moved to the UAE two years ago, and she shares her learnings about the scope of healthcare innovation across the Middle East, the pathways to seek regulatory approval for new or existing health innovations & technologies, and the best way for others to explore opportunities in the region as she did.

Tune in to learn about how Kseniya has been able to navigate a career in the cardiovascular space to now working towards bringing evidence-based medicine to the Middle East and beyond. Check out EMedSupport: www.emedsup.org

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Lauren Barker is the CEO of Uresta. Uresta is a Canadian female health organization that is looking to solve bladder leaks and urinary incontinence with an innovative health product. Lauren joined Uresta after having had a career in Investment Banking and Private Equity intrigued by positive impact Uresta could have on women’s health.

Tune in to learn about Lauren’s journey into entrepreneurship and how she’s been able to create a go-to-market and organic growth strategy for a problem space that’s been considered taboo in the past.

Lauren also talks about the need for Regulatory Consultants early on in a products development, the challenges of building and growing in the femtech space and how she has been able to lean on the entrepreneurial community in Canada for continuous learning. Check out Uresta: www.uresta.com

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Nikhit Anilbhai and Sonakshi Senthil are the co-founders of Your Cue. Your Cue is a UK-based startup that came to fruition out of the COVID-19 pandemic after Nikhit experienced challenges with ensuring patient safety without consistent vital signs monitoring during work as a frontline physician when healthcare systems were at a breaking point. With the goal of ensuring every patient is continuously monitored at an affordable price, Sonakshi and Nikhit began ideating on solutions that ranged from software to hardware solutions before settling on a finger-based wearable device.

They share their experience of prototyping their product without a technical co-founder and considering how to get their product to market, whether that would be care homes in the UK, private hospitals in India and Africa or public health systems like the NHS. This is Nikhit and Sonakshi’s first entrepreneurial stint, and they share how they have been able to obtain support from mentors, advisors and the UK’s favorable entrepreneurship environment to keep them going. Check out Your Cue: www.yourcue.co.uk

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Eric Alvarez is the Founder and CEO of Grapefruit Health. Grapefruit Health is looking to relieve pressure caused by staffing shortages on the U.S. healthcare system by contracting clinical students to take over lower acuity work, improving patient outcomes.

Eric shares what Grapefruit Health has been able to accomplish over the past year and a half, including iterating on feedback, successfully fundraising, and creating a flexible and versatile solution catered to the needs of providers. Eric also shares how Grapefruit Health has benefitted from his prior experiences working at a now-acquired enterprise healthcare solutions company and as a health system administrator. Check out Grapefruit Health: www.grapefruit.health

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Shannon Aylesworth is the Founder and CEO of Ursamin. Ursamin is looking to help patients suffering from chronic illnesses and their caregivers make better health decisions by improving access to easily-interpretable health data.

We talk about the growing problem of chronic illnesses impacting the U.S. healthcare system, how we can collect and interpret health data from multiple sources for meaningful health insights, and how an entrepreneur can position themselves to make an impact in healthcare. Check out Ursamin: www.ursamin.com

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Welcome to Scalpels & Spreadsheets. This episode lays down my goals with this podcast.