Elfie Voices: Rethinking Health

Medication non-adherence costs Europe €125 billion and over 200,000 premature deaths every year — yet roughly half of patients still don’t take their treatment as prescribed. In this episode of Rethinking Health, Grace McNamara sits down with Emilie Cristini, one of Elfie’s first employees and now head of global pharma partnerships and country operations. Emilie shares how Elfie grew from a single...

The future of healthcare won’t be won in the lab alone — it will be won at the patient’s side. Beyond the Pill, hosted by Grace McNamara, goes inside the shift transforming pharma and digital health: how companies move past the product to deliver real outcomes through adherence, patient engagement, and technology that meets people where they already are. Each episode brings on the leaders making i...

What does it take for a government to put its name behind an AI health platform? In this episode of Elfie Voices: Rethinking Health , Grace McNamara sits down with Elfie co-founders Ofir and JF to unpack a landmark moment: their first Memorandum of Understanding with a government to deploy ELFIECARE across doctors and hospitals — free of charge. After five years proving the hardest thing in digita...

Venous disease doesn’t have to be just a cosmetic concern—it's a hidden indicator of broader cardiovascular health that’s often overlooked. Why are we failing to measure and prioritize venous health at the system level—and what’s at stake if we don’t change? In this eye-opening episode, Dr. Vito Ademe, an interventional vascular cardiologist and passionate phlebologist, reveals how under-measu...

What if the biggest threat to your blockbuster isn't a competing molecule — but the patient who quietly stops refilling after month two? In this episode, Grace McNamara sits down with Mohamed El-Zayat, Elfie's new Country Manager for Egypt and the Middle East and a 22-year pharma veteran (Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck) across marketing, global brand leadership, and patient access. Mohamed bre...

Most health systems overlook one of the most impactful, cost-effective tools in chronic disease: food. What if nutrition was not just lifestyle advice, but a direct, measurable clinical intervention? In this episode of Elfie Voices, Aya speaks with Débora Gapanowicz, a dietitian specialising in diabetes and functional nutrition, about rethinking the role of food in population health. Débora explai...

Elfie is bringing its full AI-powered chronic disease management platform to WhatsApp. Medication tracking, nutrition analysis, lab results, and real-time health coaching — all inside a conversation on the chat interface 2 billion people already use every day. No app download. No training. No storage barrier. In this episode of ElfieVoices: Rethinking Health, co-founders JF and Ofir join Grace to...

Many symptoms women experience every day are labelled as normal. But what if they are early warning signs of something more serious? In this episode, Aya sits down with Dr. Malathi, a UK-trained physician with a background in internal medicine and endocrinology, to unpack how symptoms like fatigue, hormonal changes, and disrupted sleep can point to underlying metabolic conditions. They explore why...

What if your health tools knew you well enough to nudge you away from the cookie shop — not with a generic alert, but guidance built around your data, your goals, and your life? Prof. Joe Kvedar has spent 40 years at the frontier of digital medicine. A Harvard Medical School dermatologist, former leader of a 60-person innovation center at Mass General, board chair of the American Telemedicine Asso...

Obesity care is changing fast. New medications are reshaping what is possible, but they are only one part of the picture. In this episode, Aya sits down with with Dra. Larissa Caballero, a physician specializing in cardiometabolic and preventive medicine, with a focus on obesity care and lifestyle medicine to unpack where obesity treatment is heading and why daily habits still play a defining role...

What happens when you combine  AI, messaging, and a system designed to scale healthcare access for entire populations? You get a new model of care—one that isn’t just evolving, but  leapfrogging traditional healthcare systems . Across Africa, a powerful shift is underway: AI-driven pre-consultations that prepare and educate patients Messaging platforms like WhatsApp as the front door to care Digit...

In this episode, we unpack the shifting landscape of diabetes care and what it means for pharmaceutical companies and insurers. From the rapid rise of GLP-1 therapies to the expanding role but questionable value of continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), innovation is reshaping how diabetes is treated, managed, and financed. But the biggest question remains: what actually scales for the hundreds of mi...

This episode dives into how simple reflective check-ins on sleep, mood, and energy can transform everyday data into powerful early-warning signals, helping you spot stress before it spirals.​ Joining us is Vivian, Elfie’s own mindfulness and meditation instructor, certified nutritionist, and health content writer, who brings a unique blend of neuroscience, behavior science, and practical coaching...

AI is flooding into healthcare, but where is it actually making a difference? In this episode, Ofir Ejnes, Jean-Francois Legourd and Grace McNamara explore the surge of clinical AI tools, from AI scribes to the deeper challenges of trust, regulation, and data quality. The discussion moves beyond hype to examine what it will take for AI to genuinely improve care, workflows, and patient outcomes. Fo...

Health apps aren’t dead. But many are failing to deliver real health impact. In this episode, we unpack why the digital health ecosystem has become so fragmented and why AI has pushed the industry into a “wild west” phase of rapid innovation without clear structure. Ofir Ejnes, Jean-François Legourd, and Grace McNamara explore what it will take to move beyond thousands of disconnected apps towards...

High blood pressure is a silent killer. Patients don’t feel it, and that’s exactly what makes it dangerous. In this episode, we meet Erica, a hypertensive patient from Brazil whose diagnosis came completely out of the blue. She was eating well, exercising, doing everything “right.” Then one day, out of casual curiosity, she checked her blood pressure, and the numbers were alarmingly high. No sympt...

A prescription only works if it’s taken. Yet in cardiovascular care, consistency is often the weakest link. In this episode, cardiologist Dr Mario Fritsch, one of Brazil’s leading voices in heart health, Professor of Internal Medicine, Director of the Biomedical Center at UERJ and former President of the Brazilian Society of Hypertension, takes us inside the adherence crisis shaping cardiovascular...

In this episode of Elfie Voices, we speak with Eman El-Menshawy, a diabetes advocate with 30+ years of lived experience and the founder of Eman Diabetic Diaries. We unpack what daily life with diabetes really looks like, how community helps rebuild confidence, and why sharing real stories plays a powerful role in breaking stigma. We explore where gaps still exist between clinical care and real lif...

In this episode of Elfie Voices, the conversation explores the growing challenges facing traditional clinical trials and why existing models are struggling to keep up. The episode features Professor Otavio Berwanger, Chair of Clinical Trials at Imperial College London and Executive Director of The George Institute for Global Health UK. A physician-scientist, he has led large-scale international la...