By GREGORY ZELLER //
A $100 million regional collaboration committed to creating new healthcare startups is raising the bar on clinical menopause support.
Northwell Holdings, New Hyde Park-based Northwell Health’s for-profit investment arm, and New York City-based Aegis Ventures, which works with entrepreneurs and investors to create and scale-up transformative companies, have announced the launch of Upliv, a virtual-care startup focused on women’s health – specifically, on the difficult challenges of perimenopause and menopause.
Upliv will partner with employers across various industries to provide telemedicine services and whole-person care to employees experiencing symptoms of the age-related conditions. The plan is for Upliv to first service select nurses through an internal Northwell Health pilot program, with an expected enterprise-stage rollout early in 2023.
The women’s-health enterprise is a flagship creation by Northwell Health and Aegis Ventures, which first announced their combined innovation intentions in 2021 and formalized the union earlier this year with the launch of Ascertain, a $100 million business-building platform created expressly to seed-fund joint ventures founded by the two mothership entities.
Allison Schoeneck: Relying on evidence.
With Upliv, Northwell Holdings and Aegis Ventures are planning to invest about $8.4 million in seed funding over the next 12 months – a healthy running start toward better care for women in perimenopause and menopause stages who “are not getting the care they deserve,” according to Upliv Chief Executive Officer Allison Schoeneck.
“The symptoms of perimenopause and menopause can range from moderate to debilitating,” Schoeneck noted. “Too often, those symptoms are dismissed.
“Menopause can disrupt our daily lives and has serious implications for our health,” the CEO added. “Through Upliv, we are providing evidence-based treatments and whole-person support to help women manage their health.”
While calling top clinical tools into service, Upliv – the “first offering in a portfolio of virtual-care companies that Northwell Health and Aegis Ventures are developing to address gaps in care and promote equity in women’s health,” according to a joint statement – will also empower women with access to online resources and video consultations with “multidisciplinary menopause experts and coaches,” among other digital-health offerings.
The startup – which plans to offer its services as an employee benefit at no cost to workers – boasts an experienced Clinical Advisory Board with members representing Northwell’s Katz Institute for Women’s Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and the University of Pittsburgh.
With perimenopause and menopause symptoms generating thousands of dollars in annual medical costs for many women – and even forcing some successful professionals to consider early retirement – that top-flight team is worthy of the important mission at hand, according to Northwell Health Vice President and Chief of Total Wellbeing Gregg Nevola.
“Making this important healthcare benefit available to our team members throughout their experience with menopause supports our belief in addressing unmet needs and providing access to evidenced-based care,” Nevola added.
