Welcome back to StartUp Health NOW, the podcast where we hear directly from the entrepreneurs and innovators who are transforming health.

Typically on this show we talk to founders of startups. We’re all about understanding what’s new and next in health, and that often means talking to the people who are in the early days of creating a product or business. Most early-stage startups – healthcare or otherwise – have one thing in common. They need money. It takes a long time to get a healthcare business profitable, and so founders need outside funds to get an idea off the ground, complete their research, or scale up.

That brings us to this week’s guest, David Panzirer, Trustee at the Helmsley Charitable Trust. To put it in simple startup terms, David is a funder. The Helmsley Charitable Trust is an $8 billion dollar philanthropy renowned for its work funding healthcare research and innovative programs.

Of course David’s a lot more than a funder. He’s a father, for one thing, a fact that’s driven his work more than anything else. David’s also a firebrand and an instigator in an industry that often needs a little push in the right direction.

The reason for our interview, which took place at a recent health tech event, is that the Helmsley Charitable Trust has been the anchor partner for StartUp Health’s Type 1 Diabetes Moonshot, and David has been instrumental in getting that effort off the ground. He’s been part of our T1D Impact Board and has met with founders on multiple occasions to give them invaluable feedback and advice.

In this episode, we talk about the wild west of conversational AI, promising new T1D therapeutics, rural medicine, and why Helmsley has positioned itself as a high risk/high reward funder.

Let’s get into it.

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Funders: Become a Health Moonshot Champion