Telehealth weight care company Found has hired Luca Ranaldi as its new chief executive officer effective.
Ranaldi formerly held the position of chief operating officer at Spring Health, a mental health solution for employers and health plans. Found's former CEO Sarah Jones Simmer stepped down from the position in March.
Found launched in 2019 to provide medically guided weight loss programs combined with consumer tech to drive behavior change. The company has raised $132 million from investors to date. In late 2021, the company pocketed $100 million in series B funding to fuel its growth.
A majority of Americans (70%) are overweight or obese, but just 1% of doctors specialize in obesity medicine. As the demand for weight loss solutions grows, Found has expanded its services and capabilities. In May 2023, Found launched a new platform, Found for Business, that aims to help employers manage services and costs for workers struggling with weight, including GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy.
Last fall, the company unveiled Found Assistant, a generative AI tool within the Found app that offers users personalized guidance. In February, Found added MetabolicPrint as a digital diagnostic support tool that uses biological and behavioral assessments to create a personalized weight health profile.
Found has served more than 200,000 patients in its direct-to-consumer outreach, according to executives. Its care model combines the powers of 13 different medications, including GLP-1 products when appropriate, to offer over 60 care paths based on what the patient needs.
Ranaldi engaged in an email Q&A with Fierce Healthcare. Here’s the conversation.
Fierce Healthcare: What was your role before joining Found, and how did it prepare you for this leadership position?
Luca Ranaldi: I have been working on user-centric innovation and growth management for two decades. I spent the last 12 years scaling startups across B2B2C and B2C in healthcare, e-commerce and tech-enabled services. During my time at Hello Fresh and Breather, I found a passion for revolutionizing industries that were in need of innovation.
Most recently, I served as chief commercial and strategy Officer at Spring Health, a leading next-generation mental health solution for employers. As one of the very early team members, I worked across a multitude of business areas, from go-to-market with employers, to product and service expansion, and the internationalization of health plan partnerships, ultimately helping the business achieve unicorn status. I’m excited to bring this expertise to Found, which has a similarly broad range of audiences.
During my time at Spring Health, I also became uniquely aware of how stigma in our healthcare system and society can affect access to care. Mental health has had an incredible coming of age in popular culture, but the healthcare system has been slow to provide solutions. Companies like Spring Health aim to make it easier to access mental health services, and Found is doing the same for weight care – an area of our healthcare system that’s undergoing a significant transformation. I’m excited to bring my expertise to challenge the stigma around weight care by providing the most effective and accessible solution through Found.
FH: Why are you excited to be assuming the CEO role at Found?
LR: Found is uniquely equipped to meet the current need for accessible and clinically effective care, offering the best of consumer-friendly telehealth, the broadest set of medications and support from specialized providers and coaches, and comprehensive plans that are personalized for the patient’s needs. Continuing to build on this is of the utmost importance to me.
Obesity is a complex and nuanced condition that does not have a one-size-fits-all solution. I’m excited to be joining Found at this exciting growth moment as the company continues to stay at the forefront of leveraging emerging research on obesity, GLP-1 medications, and more.
FH: How do you hope to grow the business as CEO?
LR: We must continue to meet the needs of our members, first and foremost. I’ll be focused on supporting Dr. Rekha Kumar, our chief medical officer, and the wider clinical team as they continue to build and refine the most effective program for weight management and metabolic health on the market.
We know we’ve developed a product that is delivering significant value for everyone in the healthcare ecosystem. Patients, health plans and employers alike are currently clamoring for cost-effective, sustainable weight care that actually works. As we continue to scale, our challenge will be ensuring that we’re delivering on the right combination of creating a product that works and getting it in the right hands via go-to-market channels that appreciate the clinically rigorous approach we’re taking.
FH: How does Found manage GLP-1 costs for patients and health plans?
LR: Branded GLP-1s are not a cost-effective solution right now—patients, employers and health plans alike are in need of more affordable solutions. First of all, GLP-1s are not clinically appropriate for everyone, so we include a wide number of medications in our formulary to be able to meet a range of clinical needs while still maintaining financial viability. We’re also managing cost by personalizing care with diagnostic tools including our MetabolicPrint, which allows our clinicians to create a weight health profile, or “fingerprint,” that ensures we’re tailoring care to individual patients based on their biology—by doing this, we increase precision and improve outcomes.