Startups, Health Tech

Met with AWS funding, Oben Health seeks to treat hypertension in at-risk groups without medication or surgery

Oben Health, a San Francisco-based company developing a digital treatment platform to fight heart disease without medication or surgery, recently received funding from AWS' accelerator for early-stage startups led by founders from underrepresented groups. The startup will use the money to scale its platform and help conduct a pilot program to better understand its model's clinical validity.

AWS recently selected 25 startups — three of which focus on health technology — for its AWS Impact Accelerator program, a $30 million commitment to young startups led by founders from underrepresented groups. 

One of those health tech startups is Oben Health, a San Francisco-based company developing a digital treatment platform to fight heart disease without medication or surgery. The platform is designed to treat Black and Brown patients, as they are two to four times more likely to die from heart disease than White patients. 

Oben Health was founded in 2020 by Peter Njongwe, who never dreamt he would start a health tech company. He studied computer information systems and entrepreneurship at Mount Royal University in Calgary and ended up working mainly in software development for mobile products after graduation. 

Two and half years ago, a personal event changed the course of his professional career. Njongwe received a call that his 36 year-old brother had suddenly and unexpectedly died from heart failure. He went to bed one night and never awoke, devastating his family who lacked any knowledge that their loved one was suffering from heart disease. 

Njongwe’s brother did not know he was at risk for heart failure. So upon his brother’s untimely death, Njongwe immediately sought a personal check-up. Shortly after, he was inspired to create a treatment platform to prevent tragic deaths like his brother’s.

“A sad thing about my brother’s death is that this was something that was not unusual,” he said. “It’s actually very common. And that, to me, is a very disheartening thing.”

When beginning to build Oben Health, Njongwe prioritized building a platform that is specifically tailored to reach Black and Brown patients. He said he didn’t want to fall into the trap of simply throwing around “cultural competency” as a buzzword: he wanted to make sure the platform was well-researched so his team could intentionally design it to meet people of color where they are — culturally, economically and geographically.

The app is designed to help users integrate heart-healthy behaviors into their daily lives. Oben Health determined this focus after its early-stage research showed that preaching potential mortality — “you are going to die, if you don’t do X, Y and Z” – was not an effective way to get at-risk populations to take their heart health more seriously. Instead, if you tell them that high blood pressure is tied to erectile dysfunction or that it will prevent them from being able to play with their kids, they are more likely to make changes to their daily habits. 

That’s why Oben Health’s app offers interactive tools to track daily habits, as well as healthy routines designed by cardiologists, therapists and licensed dietitians Once information is entered about a users’ demographics and personal life, the platform individualizes its advice on nutrition, stress management, sleep and exercise.

To help accelerate the development of this platform, AWS is giving Oben Health $125,000 in cash and $100,000 in AWS credits. The funding — the largest the startup has received to date — comes at an opportune time, given the startup is preparing to launch a pilot program for its app with UAB Medicine, a Birmingham, Alabama-based health system.

During the 12-week pilot program, Black and Brown UAB patients who have or are at-risk for hypertension will receive access to Oben Health’s app, a local health coach and a blood pressure cuff. The pilot is designed so that patients will pay $100 per month, but Njongwe said the startup is working to secure payment from health plans in the future. 

AWS’ funding will help Oben Health take what it learned during the pilot and scale its platform. The grant will allow the startup to hire more health coaches and expand its reach, as well as support any tweaks made to the platform once the company reviews pilot data to better understand its model’s clinical validity.

Njongwe said that right now, patients who are interested in trying Oben Health’s platform are mostly those who have already been diagnosed with a heart condition. In the future, he is aiming for his company to play a larger role in preventive care so that more Black and Brown people can proactively incorporate heart-healthy behaviors into their daily routines to avoid tragedies like what happened to his brother.

Photo: FG Trade, Getty Images

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