The Scalpels & Spreadsheets Podcast

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 fai...

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 int...

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 o...

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 Nee...

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 growt...

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 dee...

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 t...

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 entrepreneur...

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 pred...

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...

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 a...

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 continuousl...

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 f...

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 meanin...

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