🌱 Seed Spotlight #2 - Wyndly

I am excited to present the second edition of Seed Spotlight! This edition of Health Digest features a conversation with an early-stage startup founder building in the healthcare space. I will dive into the company’s business model, the problem they are solving, and learnings from the founder.

Today’s edition features Wyndly - a company providing at-home treatment to people with allergies.

Company: Wyndly, founded by Manan Shah, MD and Aakash Shah

Problem: Allergies plague over 50 million Americans, making it the 5th most chronic disease in the US. Curing allergies is difficult and burdensome, often requiring weekly visits to the doctor for shots.

Solution: Wyndly provides immunotherapy for allergies through allergy drops, known as sublingual immunotherapy, all from the comfort of your home.

I connected with Wyndly cofounder and Chief Medical Officer, Manan Shah, on Twitter back in January. I DM’d Manan asking if he’d be interested in chatting with me about Wyndly. At the time, I was not the writer for Techstars Health Digest, and had about 40 Twitter followers.

Manan could not have been more sincere, open, and kind.

I immediately resonated with the the problem Wyndly is solving. I have bad seasonal allergies to pretty much anything that grows outside. In high school, I started a 5 year allergy shot regiment. I had tried over-the counter eye drops, nasal spray, oral medication, etc. None of it seemed to provide relief, so I decided to try out allergy shots.

The goal of allergy shots/immunotherapy is to inject small doses of what the patient is allergic to, slowly building the dosage overtime until symptoms are minor/eliminated.

The shots worked great, but were incredibly burdensome. I had to travel 25 minutes to the allergist’s office to get my shot every week for a year, then bi-weekly thereafter. Once I went to college, I had to transfer the allergy shot serum to the student health center. On the train to college, I had to keep the serum on ice. When I’d go home for break, I’d have to do the same. It was annoying!

What I would’ve done to be able to do this all at home (or in my dorm room)!

That’s where Wyndly comes in…

Wyndly uses “sublingual immunotherapy” to help patients become immune to what they are allergic to. Sublingual means “under the tongue” - instead of injecting the serum at the doctor’s office, Wyndly allows patients to administer their serum/immunotherapy from the comfort of their own home via oral drops.

They provide treatment in 3 easy steps, as described on the Wyndly site:

Studies have shown that sublingual therapy and allergy shots provide the same results. So why doesn’t everyone who travels to the allergist for shots do this?

Manan said that “Wyndly’s treatment is a more recent and modern innovation in allergy care than allergy shots. Previously, at-home sublingual allergy immunotherapy was often only available at major academic hospitals. Wyndly is changing that by being the first to give everyone access to at-home sublingual allergy immunotherapy through telemedicine.”

Wyndly can provide immunotherapy for most common allergies - pollen, dogs, cats, dust, and more.

As Manan can attest, my first thought was “where the heck was this when I was looking for treatment!?”

I spent about $1,300 per year on my allergy shots - and that was through my insurance! Wyndly would’ve been a bit cheaper AND I wouldn’t have had to travel to the doctor’s office or transport the serum to college.

The DTC wave in healthcare is fascinating and incredible for patients. In our fee-for-service world, there’s no incentive for providers to offer at-home allergy treatments to patients. My allergist got paid every time I came in for a shot.

Wyndly offers a more convenient alternative that yields the same result. I’m really excited to see Manan and the Wyndly team grow!

You can learn more about Wyndly, sublingual immunotherapy, or if you could benefit from their services here.

You can connect with Dr. Manan Shah via Twitter. If he responded to me, I’m sure he’d love to hear from you!

My name is Dan Cimaglia - I am the curator of Techstars Health Digest. If you know of any companies who should be featured on a future edition of Seed Spotlight, let me know!

If you enjoyed learning about Wyndly, please forward this newsletter to a few friends! It would mean a lot to me to share these stories with a wider audience.

You can also follow me on Twitter @dan_cimaglia, where I post similar content about healthcare, start-ups, and tech!