HLTH24 Day 2: Halle Berry wants to change the dialogue on menopause

LAS VEGAS—Actor, producer, director and entrepreneur Halle Berry wants to put a new spin on women's longevity and menopause, a health condition that impacts millions of women.

Berry took the main stage at HLTH on Monday afternoon to talk about her personal journey with menopause and the launch of midlife women's health and wellness company Respin.

"Oh my goodness, what deserves a re-spin more than menopause? Shouldn't we rethink everything we thought we knew about menopause? Because really what we know is pretty much nothing. I realized that culture needed a shift, because when I looked up a woman in midlife, I saw an image, a Google image, that was shocking to me. The midlife woman in the image was in her 40s and was pretty much hunched over, not standing straight anymore and all the way until we're walking along with the cane. Menopause needed a rebrand," Berry told Liz Baker Plosser, Editor-in-Chief of Women’s Health on stage Monday.

In the United States, more than 1 million women experience menopause each year, or about 6,000 women per day. Globally, an estimated 25 million women go through menopause each year.

Berry's company, Respin, is designed as the first 360-degree female longevity brand, Berry said.

The four pillars of Respin, or what Berry called the four C's are community, content, commerce and care.

Having a community of women to talk helps to destigmatize menopause, she noted.

"And then content, women need education. They need to learn about what's happening to their bodies. They need to learn what to expect. They need to learn how to manage it. They need to learn how to choose the right doctor," Berry said.

Halle Berry posing in front of HLTH 2024 banner
Halle Berry at HLTH 2024 (HLTH)

The care component involves a health coach to help guide women through the right care path.

The company will also sell health and wellness products that women want to help navigate menopause symptoms.

Berry said Respin launched this week after a pilot involving 250 women. Ninety percent of women in that pilot program reported symptom improvement.

Recursion deepens partnership with Google Cloud

Recursion and Google Cloud have expanded their tech partnership to use cloud technologies to power Rcursion's drug discovery platform. 

This strategic partnership includes exploring generative AI capabilities, including Gemini models, to support the RecursionOS, drive improved search and access with BigQuery, and help scale compute resources. 

Recursion will also explore making some of its AI models available on Google Cloud. The aim is to reduce the time and cost involved in bringing new therapies to patients.

The average cost to develop a new drug has increased by 15% in the past year, reaching approximately $2.3 billion, according to Deloitte

Recursion is addressing this problem by leveraging its own proprietary datasets, and AI tools, compute power, and technologies from Google Cloud to accelerate drug discovery research. 

"Our partnership with Google Cloud supports the acceleration of our research with a goal of bringing new and better treatments to patients more efficiently," said Chris Gibson, co-founder and CEO, Recursion. "We are pleased to have Google Cloud help us  continue to push the boundaries of drug discovery and the development of new treatments for patients faster than ever before using their cloud infrastructure."

HealthEx, backed by General Catalyst, launches with $14M

HealthEx, a startup that built a consumer preference and consent platform for healthcare to unlock data access, launched today, backed by $14 millino in seed and series A funding. 

HealthEx was hatched by General Catalyst and is deeply integrated with the VC firm's Health Assurance network. 

General Catalyst led the round, with participation by Electric Capital.

HealthEx's AI-powered platform enables healthcare organizations to efficiently collect, manage, and enforce patient consent and preferences, improving both patient trust and operational efficiency, according to the company.

HealthEx’s latest funding will accelerate the expansion of its AI-powered platform.

The HealthEx solution is one of the first AI platforms that enables healthcare organizations to easily create, collect, and enforce patient consent and preferences, and allow health systems to fulfill their roles as trusted stewards of patient data. Healthcare organizations can enhance the patient experience, boost operational efficiency, increase compliance, and unlock new data licensing opportunities.

Through HealthEX's technology, AI agents help clinical staff generate consents for different use cases during the care journey to reduce manual effort. Data and compliance administrators can programmatically enforce granular consents and leverage AI-assisted risk assessments of existing consents, giving them confidence that preferences and all sources of data policy are followed through via HealthEx’s APIs, gateways, and secure data vaults.

“As healthcare organizations face new complexities in data use and licensing, it’s clear that both patients and providers need a more streamlined, transparent solution to ensure trust and compliance in today’s data-driven landscape,” said Priyanka Agarwal, MD, MBA, co-founder and CEO of HealthEx, in a statement. “We allow healthcare organizations to manage this data effectively while giving patients more control over their healthcare decisions and creating a more transparent process. Our vision is to manage patient preferences and consent for individuals across every healthcare touchpoint with a unified experience for preferences, consent, and data access management.”

HealthEx complements national efforts in health data interoperability to allow greater patient input in data movement, including TEFCA’s individual access services. Demonstrating the company’s commitment to interoperability, HealthEx makes patient and health system data preferences and policies available to ecosystem collaborators in formats compatible with emerging HL7 Consent FHIR standards.

NACHC, HLTH team up to tackle health equity

The National Association of Community Health Centers and HLTH are joining forces to address critical health equity challenges.

NACHC members treat more than 32 million patients each year, many of whom are living in underserved regions, have low incomes or are members of minority groups. AS such, NACHC has a "unique lens" into equity challenges, according to the announcement.

At the conference, NACHC leaders are joining multiple panels and discussions throughout the week, and the organization will host office hours to allow attendees to meet representatives from community health centers across the country.

NACHC will also host a "TechQuity Tank" where innovators can make the pitch to community health centers for their tech platforms and solutions.

“NACHC is grateful to partner with HLTH, Inc., and be part of a dynamic community of more than 10,000 leaders and change-makers representing various sectors across the health system,” said Kyu Rhee, M.D., president and CEO of NACHC, in the press release. “As we work together to build a better and more equitable health system, it is essential to bring the diverse voices, power of local communities, and the innovations of community health center leaders to the table.”