Lessons from Web Sun, President and Co-Founder of Komodo Health, on building the complete patient journey through data and technology.

Web Sun Co-Founder and President at Komodo Health, a technology platform company creating the new standard for real-world data and analytics.

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Welcome back to the Pear Healthcare Playbook! Every week, we’ll be getting to know trailblazing healthcare leaders and dive into building a digital health business from 0 to 1.

Today, we're so excited to get to know Web Sun, President and Co-Founder of Komodo Health. Komodo Health leverages data-driven insights to enhance patient care and alleviate disease burdens. Their platform analyzes de-identified real-world data from a wide range of sources to  offer detailed patient-level insights around treatment, diagnosis, costs, and outcomes for millions of patients across the U.S. Web oversees operations including business development, sales and marketing, and people.

Prior to founding Komodo Health, Web was a managing director at Zephyr Health, a leading life sciences data and insights solution provider, running all non-Engineering functions. He spent nearly eight years as vice president at Campbell Alliance (now Syneos Health) where he advised enterprise life sciences companies across corporate development, brand management and marketing, commercial effectiveness and medical affairs initiatives.

Web also served as an Executive Advisor to Reify Health, Heads Up Health and other healthcare/healthtech startups focused on Big Data, SaaS, Healthcare IT, and Predictive Analytics to improve patient outcomes. 

In this episode, we explore Komodo Health's origins, the creation of their MVP and key products, their transformative impact on healthcare, their future with AI, and Web's unique insights for founders navigating the data science and healthcare landscape.

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Komodo Health: The Mission and the Founding Journey

• Founded in 2014, the company name of Komodo Health was inspired by the aspiration to evoke a sense of fierceness and toughness, as well as inspiration and magic. The founders recognized that their mission would be incredibly challenging, akin to a difficult quest.

• To succeed, they believed they needed to embody both resilience and a bit of enchantment. Therefore, they named the company Komodo Health after the last living dragon, creating a tough, somewhat intimidating, but enduring and inspiring image for the company.

• Komodo Health's mission is simple but challenging: reducing the global burden of disease. To tackle the biggest healthcare challenges, it’s crucial to learn from as many patients as possible. 

• Komodo Health has built a healthcare technology platform that combines diverse real-world data with a scalable, full-stack infrastructure into a unified system. This enables robust research and provides unbiased, comprehensive insights that drive meaningful impact.

• What sets Komodo Health apart is its full-stack approach. The decision to adopt this approach from the beginning stemmed from observations made by co-founders Arif and Web. 

  • They noticed a broken insights workflow in healthcare, characterized by predictable but fragmented processes across large, siloed enterprises. Consulting projects often involved multi-year, multi-million dollar engagements aimed at understanding patient costs, outcomes, and pricing risk. 

  • These projects began with predictable questions and a laborious process of gathering and organizing data scattered across the enterprise and the team recognized the industry's challenges, such as healthcare enterprises spending months organizing data before beginning analytics and insights work. 

  • On average, Life Sciences teams work with four different data vendors just to access the data they need, integrate it into their systems, and pressure-test it for accuracy and completeness. The process takes seven months before they can even analyze the data.

• Observing trends like the increasing availability and liquidity of data, enhanced cloud capabilities, and the openness to data sharing, they envisioned a system where applications are data and insights native. This vision led to the full-stack approach, enabling Komodo Health to make a meaningful difference for clients by simplifying workflows and accelerating access to critical insights.

"When we say full stack, we genuinely mean full stack. Many people use different parts of the definition, but we go from the underlying data assets and pull it through platform capabilities that both our internal application engineers and external third-party application engineers can leverage."

• The process starts with proprietary data assets, known as the Healthcare Map. These assets are integrated into platform capabilities accessible to both internal and external engineers. The platform handles everything from data cleansing and normalization to deduplication and entity resolution. As a result, insights, applications, and workflows are powered by the foundational elements of the data and platform.

• The key to this is collaboration with various data partners. By offering clear benefits to these partners, Komodo Health has encouraged more first-party data providers to share their insights, helping to build what is now trademarked as the Healthcare Map.

• The Healthcare Map benefits from a network effect: as more data is shared, the insights become richer and more valuable. This increasing data volume enhances visibility and understanding of human health. 

• Unlike many companies that claim to have insights on 300 million patients, Komodo Health emphasizes not just the breadth but the depth and continuity of its data. The goal is to track 330 million patients longitudinally, capturing every encounter they have with the healthcare system.

• Komodo Health aims for completeness and real-time data. The aspiration is to maintain "closed lives," where data from multiple sources is continuously updated and integrated. This includes comprehensive payer datasets and real-world evidence gathered in real-time.

• Many digital health companies have focused on aggregating and re-selling data. However, this approach often makes it difficult to determine what the data truly represents. There is often uncertainty about whether the data captures 5% or 95% of a patient’s life, and there are frequently insufficient demographic details to conduct equity research.

• Komodo Health addresses these challenges by ensuring the data's completeness and continuity, providing a more accurate and comprehensive picture of patient health. This approach enables robust research and delivers unbiased, meaningful insights that drive impactful healthcare solutions.

• By stitching together this extensive data, Komodo Health aims to significantly reduce the burden of disease worldwide, making data-driven insights accessible and actionable for all stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem.

Building the MVP via Aperture

• The aspiration with Komodo Health's first MVP was to prove the full-stack thesis. This meant demonstrating that the platform could integrate a sufficient depth and breadth of healthcare data to be relevant across various conditions, from diabetes to rare diseases. The goal was to ensure the platform could effectively stitch together these diverse data assets and generate meaningful insights.

• The first proof of concept focused on medical affairs in life sciences. 

  • The Medical Affairs team in a life sciences company focuses on many things including identifying and engaging key opinion leaders (KOLs) and national thought leaders in specific disease areas. Their responsibilities include facilitating non-promotional scientific exchanges, educating healthcare providers about new breakthrough therapies, and supporting clinical trials.

• The target audience was medical leaders and directors engaged in non-promotional scientific exchanges with key opinion leaders (KOLs) and national thought leaders. The goal was to create a tool that would help medical affairs teams identify and engage these KOLs effectively. The result was Komodo’s Aperture solution.

• Historically, the identification of key opinion leaders (KOLs) in the medical field relied heavily on two main factors: clinical trial activity and publications. 

  • Medical affairs teams would use sites like ClinicalTrials.gov to understand which trials KOLs were involved in and analyze their publications to gauge their expertise and influence. 

  • However, this approach had its limitations. It often overlooked the actual clinical activity and patient management practices of these KOLs, sometimes failing to account for whether they were actively managing patients or merely contributing to research.

• Komodo Health observed that clinical activity—managing patients within a specific disease area—was massively predictive of a KOL's influence.

"We wanted to operate at the intersection of knowing potential KOL’s publication experience and history, their clinical trial experience, and also understanding how they managed patients. Were they delivering the latest standard of care, or were they using outdated practices?"

• Aperture was designed to transform the way Medical Affairs teams operate by offering a comprehensive view of potential key opinion leaders (KOLs) and clinical trial sites. Traditional strategies that relied solely on scholarly data were limited in scope. Aperture went beyond just assessing a KOL’s publication history and clinical trial involvement; it also evaluates how they manage patients.

"We found it very interesting that many KOLs who were on the verge of retiring and hadn't seen a patient in 12, 24, or even 36 months were still being defined as KOLs."

• Aperture provides clinical development teams with insights into each site’s disease burden, patient panels, referral pathways, clinical trial experience, and current trial load. It measures influence through a diverse matrix of signals, including scientific publications, patient volume, industry engagement, referral and payer networks, clinical trial experience, and social media analytics. 

• This holistic view improves the identification of suitable investigators and sites, accelerating patient recruitment for clinical trials and advancing new breakthrough therapies effectively.

• 

Investing and Building the Pipeline of Komodo Products 

• Developing data and analytics requires an incredible amount of investment. When Komodo Health developed its products, they had to carefully consider their pricing strategy and business model. The investments required were substantial: acquiring the underlying data, developing platform capabilities to minimize human intervention, and building the application layer.

• Komodo Health approached pricing in two ways. 

  • First they assessed the cost of building each product, encompassing the full stack of investments.

  • Second, they considered the value delivered to their customers.

"If you think about traditional KOL consulting projects, they can cost anywhere from $150,000 to $450,000 per year. The crazy thing is, you do the study once, and then 18-24 months later, your consulting team might get brought back to rerun that exact same study."

• Komodo Health's products, however, provide continuous updates, integrating new data and identifying emerging trends and key figures in real-time. This ongoing, up-to-date insight made their offerings incredibly valuable for customers. 

• Therefore, Komodo Health priced their solutions based on both the cost of development and the significant value delivered, offering scalable and repeatable solutions that surpassed traditional consulting projects.

• When examining the evolution of Komodo Health, the first major step was recognizing the significant investment being made into the Healthcare Map. 

  • Initially, millions, eventually tens of millions of dollars, were funneled into this asset. However, it became clear that medical teams were not utilizing it to its full potential—they weren't running sophisticated commercial analytics or conducting longitudinal outcome studies. 

  • Instead, they were performing a limited set of analytics on the Healthcare Map, which had far more potential applications.

• Realizing this, Komodo Health began exploring other use cases. They launched their second and third applications for commercial audiences, and by 2024, they had over a dozen applications powered by their platform and the Healthcare Map. These applications were designed for various audiences within and beyond enterprise life sciences, addressing predictable and recurring questions from business leaders.

• Some of the products that Komodo Health developed over time to provide value for their customers are the following:

1. Healthcare Map: A comprehensive database that tracks 330 million patients longitudinally, providing a detailed view of patient encounters across the healthcare system.

2. MapLab: An all-in-one analytics platform to generate insights into disease trends, treatment pathways, patient populations, and a host of other complex research questions.

3. MapView: A no-code analytics solution with dozens of pre-built analytics templates that are tailored to a range of industry use cases and support a variety of common analytics needs.

4. Aperture: A tool for clinical leaders and Medical Affairs teams that integrates diverse data signals to identify and engage key opinion leaders (KOLs) effectively.

5. Sentinel: An application with analytics modules to create unique algorithms and deep analysis of patient data in the Healthcare Map, providing insights to drive innovation and develop new solutions. 

6. Pulse: A clinical alerting solution, which provides teams with actionable, real-time intelligence built on millions of daily patient encounters..

7. Prism: An application designed to create highly specific cohorts from the Healthcare Map to quickly test hypotheses, create prospective patient cohorts, and generate insights specific patient populations. 

Source

Partnerships with Komodo Health 

• One of the most exciting developments has been Komodo Health's partnerships with external developers and companies, enhancing their platform capabilities for a wider audience. Komodo Health had a backlog of use cases—about 900 rows long—highlighting the potential of their data assets. Many of these use cases are crucial for reducing disease burden and transforming healthcare.

• To address these opportunities, Komodo Health started partnering with third-party developers. These developers faced a choice: either build their offerings and solutions independently, investing heavily in data assets, IT infrastructure, data lakes, and data warehousing, or leverage Komodo Health's established full-stack platform. Given Komodo Health's decade-long investment in this approach, the choice was straightforward for many digital health and healthcare IT companies.

1. MoonLake Immunotherapeutics: Komodo Health entered a three-year partnership to support MoonLake's clinical trials and market strategies for inflammatory diseases like hidradenitis suppurativa and psoriatic arthritis. This collaboration leverages Komodo's data analytics and platform technologies to enhance clinical trial selection and accelerate the commercialization of new therapies​ (MoonLake Immunotherapeutics)​​ (Fierce Biotech)​.

2. GeneDx: This partnership aims to expand access to one of the world's largest rare disease datasets. By integrating GeneDx's extensive de-identified genetic data into Komodo’s MapEnhance offering, the collaboration helps biopharma companies unlock deeper insights into genetically based diseases, aiding in drug discovery and clinical trial design​ (markets.businessinsider.com)​.

3. COTA Healthcare: With this partnership, companies can link COTA’s oncology data with data from Komodo’s Healthcare Map to gain a more robust view of cancer patient journeys and outcomes for Life Sciences researchers. (Komodo Health)

4. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and Mathematica: In collaboration with these organizations, Komodo Health is funding innovative studies to identify gaps in care, understand risks, and improve healthcare outcomes using real-world data and advanced analytics​ (Komodo Health)​.

• Komodo Health acquired Mavens to enhance its integration into the life sciences enterprise and Breakaway Partners to create a comprehensive market access solution regarding formulary and prescription policies. 

• Other partnerships with Komodo Health include Blue Health Intelligence, integrating extensive patient data into Komodo’s Healthcare Map, and Turquoise Health, focusing on price transparency through claims data analysis, along with many other partnerships to expand their impact and capabilities.

The Impact of Komodo Health

• Komodo Health's impact on healthcare analytics is exemplified by their recent independent analysis of Fezolinetant (Veozah), an FDA-approved drug for hot flashes.

• This study is part of Komodo’s Drug Snapshot Series, which highlights the underinvestment in women's health. Menopause symptoms, particularly hot flashes, have been historically overlooked and undermanaged, leaving many women without adequate treatment options.

• Using Komodo's MapView solution, the analysis explored the initial uptake of Veozah across the healthcare landscape and its potential for wider adoption.

• MapView is designed as an advanced iteration of their full-stack capabilities, enabling non-coding users to create sophisticated patient cohorts easily.

"We created a workflow that allows a non-coding audience to easily create sophisticated patient cohorts. Users can define cohorts based on various patient-level features, such as age and comorbidities, and see counts and relevant codes. The application recommends additional code sets and maps the workflow to configurable analytics report templates for different audiences, making it incredibly powerful for end-users."

• The tool offers configurable analytics report templates for various audiences, including clinical, medical affairs, and commercial sectors. This allows users to access insights that traditionally would have required significant investment and time. 

"Normally, a project might cost $400,000, but with MapView, users can get these insights directly within the application, significantly reducing costs and time."

• Komodo Health's market reception has been overwhelmingly positive, particularly due to their efforts in democratizing access to critical insights.

• In clinical trials, where enrollment timelines and health equity are major challenges, Komodo Health provides solutions. Their platform allows companies to gain necessary insights without needing a data science background, streamlining the process and enhancing inclusivity in trials. 

  • For instance, many clinical teams have prioritized health equity, striving to include underrepresented groups in their studies. Komodo Health supports these efforts by offering detailed insights into diverse patient populations.

• One notable partnership is with Johnson & Johnson, where Komodo Health has empowered their clinical teams globally. This collaboration has facilitated patient identification and enrollment, site activation, and the addressing of health equity priorities.

• Such partnerships underscore Komodo Health's commitment to reducing disease burden and improving the efficiency of healthcare operations for key stakeholders.

• Another example is a study conducted by Takeda Pharmaceuticals using Komodo’s platform to analyze clinical outcomes and the healthcare resource utilization burden for patients with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a rare type of epilepsy.

• In addition, Komodo’s platform has been used by companies like Pfizer, Cerner, and Trinity Life Sciences to generate insights on patient experiences and treatment patterns, further showcasing the platform’s ability to support high-quality research and improve healthcare outcomes​ (Komodo Health)​.

Komodo Health + AI

• Komodo Health has been leveraging big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve healthcare outcomes. The emergence of AI and machine learning (ML) has enhanced their capabilities, but the key to better patient outcomes lies in the quality of the data powering these technologies.

• First and foremost, the quality of Komodo Health's Healthcare Map is unparalleled. AI's effectiveness is heavily dependent on the quality of data it is trained on. Komodo Health has made significant investments to ensure their data is comprehensive and robust, offering a detailed understanding of human health, patient costs, and outcomes.

• Komodo Health has been investing in AI and ML capabilities for over a decade, particularly in non-customer-facing innovations like token resolution. This allows their platform to accurately match and distinguish patient records across different data sources. 

  • For example, their system can determine whether multiple records for "Michael Lee" refer to one individual or several different individuals, ensuring high-fidelity, trusted data.

• These investments have positioned Komodo Health to introduce generative AI into their software portfolio. Later this year, they will launch MapAI, an analytics copilot for business end-users.

  • MapAI is designed to revolutionize healthcare analytics by making it even more user-friendly and powerful. Imagine starting with a simple chat interface where you can type in your queries. For instance, you could ask, "MapAI, how many colorectal cancer patients have been newly diagnosed in the last 12 months?" Instantly, MapAI generates a comprehensive analytics report based on the latest data.

  • MapAI simplifies patient cohort creation, enabling you to specify detailed criteria without needing to code. For example, you might need to find patients diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, over the age of 40, with comorbidities like hypertension. You just type these requirements into the chat, and MapAI does the rest, suggesting additional relevant codes and procedures to ensure a complete cohort.

  • Once the cohort is defined, MapAI provides a series of analytics report templates tailored to different needs, such as incidence rates, treatment patterns, or referral networks. You can then refine your query, asking for more specific insights like, "How many of these patients have not received a lab test?" MapAI updates the report in real-time, allowing for dynamic and iterative analysis.

• This tool is set to launch in the second half of this year and aims to democratize access to advanced healthcare analytics that can be easily automated and shared across teams and departments, in an effort to modernize the insights workflow and reduce the complexities and barriers to data and analytics usage for users without a technical background.

What Makes a Successful Founder

1. Hunger:

• "Hunger is essential."

• Founders must have an insatiable drive fueled by a deep desire to achieve their mission. For Komodo Health, this hunger stems from the aspiration to reduce the disease burden and build a meaningful, generational company in healthcare.

2. Optimism and Resilience:

• Optimism is equally crucial. Founders must stay positive despite setbacks, whether it's losing a candidate to a tech giant like Google or facing rejections from investors and customers. "You need optimism to keep grinding and working towards making a difference."

3. Communicate the Vision:

• Great founders communicate a vision that others may not believe in initially. Over time, as they stick to this vision, they gather support. This ability to inspire and maintain belief in their mission is vital for attracting top talent and investors.

4. Attract Top Talent:

• Komodo Health's success in attracting top-tier talent in data science, data application, and engineering is rooted in its mission. Many talented individuals, tired of working on projects with minimal societal impact, are drawn to Komodo's meaningful work in healthcare. "We have dragons here at Komodo," referring to team members with personal health stories, reinforcing the company's mission.

5. Have a Mission-Driven Culture:

• The company's focus on its mission is communicated consistently. Weekly standups with customer and patient advocacy organization presentations remind the team why their work matters. This mission-driven culture helps them persevere through challenging times, maintaining focus and commitment to their goals.

What does Web Sun enjoy doing when he's not focused on Komodo Health?

"You know, I am a family man through and through. I think that's what has allowed me to have balance. We work so many hours and so hard on our 'baby,' Komodo Health. Arif has two kids, and I have three, and we share custody of this baby called Komodo Health. Outside of work, my family is my life, and they help keep me grounded. When we've had a tough week, I go and coach my six-year-old's basketball team. It allows me to stay balanced and come back after the weekend ready to tackle all the challenges ahead with energy, enthusiasm, and a sense of being refreshed."

What advice would you give yourself if you started Komodo over again? 

"We have four values: be awesome, seek growth, deliver wow, and enjoy the ride. 'Seek growth' has always resonated deeply with Arif and me. Throughout our journey, countless people said it was too hard, impossible, or questioned our abilities against established industry giants. They doubted our non-engineering backgrounds and our chances of success.

But staying open, optimistic, and networking have been crucial. Arif calls me a super networker. Getting different perspectives from various people informed our path without discouraging us. Seeking growth, networking, and learning from others who've gone through this journey has always been inspiring. 

That's why Arif and I attend many founders' events. If we can pay it forward and encourage others at the beginning of their journey, it's incredibly inspiring for us and a way to give back to the opportunity we've created with our team."

Interested in Komodo? Learn more on their website, X, and LinkedIn

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