On Transitioning to Gender-Specific Medicine - HIMSS Europe Series with Thao Nguyen

My goal is to be obsolete in the world, that we don't need Equal Care anymore because it's normal, because we test on who might use this drug, this intervention, this AI in the end. There will be a long period that I think Equal Care is necessary because we are in a transition period for this to become normal.But I want my kids to tell the story. My mom invented it and now it's normal.

Hello Dear Listeners, welcome to a new episode of our HIMSS Europe special series on Narratives of Purpose.This is the final week of our series and I am bringing you interviews with three speakers of the HIMSS Women's Health in Focus track from the session titled "It Starts with Data: Closing the Gap".These interviews were recorded in Paris back in June at the HIMSS, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society European annual flagship event, also considered as Europe's number one digital health conference. For those of you listening to Narratives of Purpose for the first time, my name is Claire Murigande. I am your host on this podcast which is all about amplifying social impact by showcasing unique stories of global change makers who are contributing to make a difference in society. My guest today is Thao Nguyen. Thao is the founder and CEO of Equal Care, a company committed to advancing the healthcare system by making gender specific medicine the norm. Equal Care certifies prevention, diagnostic and treatments with sex and gender balanced clinical data.This is the second time I speak with Thao on Narratives on Purpose. Last year she was a featured guest in our Women's Health series Introducing Equal Care. Have a listen to episode 72 for that conversation.Today, Thao chairs the latest developments at Equal Care. She talks collaboration with pharmaceutical companies and her expectations for the HIMSS conference.Remember to rate and review our show wherever you listen to your podcasts or simply share your thoughts and feedback on the Narratives of Purpose website using this short link bit.ly/narrativesofpurpose, then select the review page. For now, get comfortable and let's begin the conversation with Thao. Thao, welcome back to Narratives of Purpose.

Hi Claire. So happy to be back. Happy to be in Paris.

Last time we spoke it was, I think exactly one year ago.

I think so, yes.

It was the Summer 24.

Yes.

And now we're together at this European Congress in Paris. Tell me about Equal Care. What has changed since last year? I've seen you on many stages pitching. So what has changed?

I think what has changed is that the topic of sex and gender specific medicine really has picked up on any channel, on social media, on print, in society and also in policies.It has picked up in good and bad Also with the election of Donald Trump, also, sex and gender diversity in healthcare in science has been in the negative media and also going backwards in the US But I think more importantly, we in Europe have to pick up the baton and continue this. People ask me, tao, what do you do now that Donald Trump is elected? It's forbidden in the US And I'm like, we are sitting in Europe.I'm not scared of Donald Trump. And if the US Is not doing it, then it's rather a reason to put more force into it than less.

And so what are your expectations here at this conference? You'll be here most of the three days, I think, right?

Yes. So my expectation is to have a lot of conversations to see how companies that are actually doing healthcare at the ground are seeing the topic.Is that even a topic? And where are problems that we could help solving.

And have you had some prior contacts before joining the event?

I've been in contact with a standard data provider and we exchange very often because data is at the core of everything we do nowadays in healthcare.So it's always very good to know where the industry is right now, where the problems, where the huge projects for centralization, where data gets aggregated because that helps to find an attachment point for the work that we are doing with sex and gender specific health care. Because, yeah, it starts everything with data.

Exactly.It's a great segue into my next question because you're actually scheduled to speak at the very beginning of the Women's Health track and your session is titled "It Starts with Data: Closing the Gap". So what is your overall message that you want to share with the audience when you speak on Thursday morning?

I would say the glass is half full.That is the overriding of what we do at Equal Care and also of my speech, because we always talk about the gender health gap and it's this huge research gap and we are 100 years behind. Yesterday I read we owe women a century of research. I love that.But at the same time, we have to be aware that there is a lot of high quality data on sex and gender specific medicine that doesn't lead to better care. So we have to be conscious that we are not actually treating what we have with the right focus.Because if we would apply only 20% of the knowledge we have today about sex and gender specific medicine to 80% of the patients would be massive, the gain and outcome we have. So let's take what we have and make this actionable, trustable and findable and go beyond. Oh, the gender health gap is a research gap.No, we can act today and not just lean back and wait until the research is here.

So you mean we have enough data to start acting, basically?

Yes, we do. In cardiology, who should go and update guidelines, make them sex and gender specific. Because there are many indications, there are many diagnoses, many treatment plans that we actually could in cardiology today make much better for men and women.

That's interesting. That's something we never hear. Right. It's mostly about there's this gap. So we need to create this solution, we need to create new tech.But in fact if we look at what we already have, we can do a great difference. So why do you think this is not happening?

Because there is no focus in the decision making layer. Well, leadership in medicine is still very male driven. Like head of departments are usually male.Also of course making policy for two gender will make it double.

It sounds complicated. And no one wants to go there.

Exactly. I think that are the barriers. But also like the paradigm shift that today we can process so much more data only started four years ago.So it hasn't arrived in the head of the people that actually segregating by gender. There are no technological barriers to this anymore. I understand that we haven't done it so far because the tech was.The processing power was not there. Handling the complexity would have been very expensive. But it's 2025, we can do it now. Let's do it.

I remember when I spoke to you last year, I was really struck the fact that your approach is so simple and we haven't thought about it before.So do you now since you've been on many stages and talking about Equal Care, do you see some other companies, organization trying to also address that?

Still not. I'm still surprised. And people always say are you the only one doing this in the world? And I'm like yes. And aren't you afraid somebody will copy you?And I say no, because

We need more of that, right?

We need more of this. Then I wouldn't have to educate the whole world by myself. I'm happy to share the global market for sex and gender specific certification.

That's really interesting that people ask you that. It's actually a huge market and opportunity. We should actually all jump into it. Instead of asking you if you're not afraid to be the only one.

Yes. Well, I would say yes. My CFO would say no. But it's a huge.I was always a little bit reluctant to give this market size numbers because they seem very realistic to me. But if you Think about that.Healthcare is 4 trillion globally and we today could certify 30% of this or we would take a fee that is below a percent of their revenue. Very small, like other certification bodies do, like bio in UK they take 0.03.I somehow land at a unicorn market size and I don't dare to say this, to be honest, it's a little bit scary.

And I remember that earlier this year you also pitched Equal Care at the Reuters Pharma conference and you won first place. Right. What was the implications now for Equal Care to be the, the number one? What's it called again?

It was Reuters Pharma 2025 Digital Innovation Challenge and we won out of 72 global startups that applied. I think that this was a very good recognition by the pharma industry because up until then pharma would look at us or have conversations.Yes, it's very nice to have. We will go there sometimes and we have a DEI organization, but they are also waiting for the research a little bit.And when I say come and make this actionable, it was a little bit too concrete, like oh, now we should act now.But having this recognition by the commercialization organization of all pharma globally was a very good signal to us that we are going in the right direction.Being invited to Reuters and making a pitch directly to the commercialization of pharma actually helped us to tell to go and think about, okay, what is the win for Pharma? We realized if we would treat women sufficiently and in time some interventions would expand their markets by by 15%.No new science, no new product, just awareness building. If you take blood pressure, only 80% of people who have blood pressure go to the doctor.And I think women even less because they wouldn't think that they have a cardiovascular problem. And then of this 80%, only 60% get the adequate treatment.And how many people of this are women because they're not taking seriously because their tiredness or short of breathness is oh yeah, go and rest. And that story really resonated and I remember that was very good.In Barcelona, the CEO of Pharma Novartis, he did a speech and he said all the initiatives finally work when you find the business case. And this really stuck with me and we have a clear business case for Pharma. I think that's why we want this is a win, win, win.And sometimes people don't want to believe that we can create this win, win, win situation where we can get more outcome, more revenue for pharma and actually Move the whole system into the right direction.And I wish I would have, like a trophy, but if I would, I imagine this Barcelona trophy with Reuters 2025 and that would represent this win, win, win case that we are able to tell the story now to the world.

That's amazing. Are they now coming to you for collaborations or partnerships?

Yes, we have quite some good feedback from Barcelona. And of course, it's pharma. I cannot say, okay, tomorrow we will have this certification online, ready to be seen by the world.But Barcelona sparked a lot, a lot of conversations and we are busy as we have never been since Barcelona.

Wow, amazing. Congratulations. So I guess it all comes back to how you communicate, right? And what's in it for the other party?

Exactly. It's a lot about the storytelling and giving people the right perspective.For pharma companies, of course, there's a business case and an impact case. For patients, it's your health or the health of your loved ones.For Medtech, it might be a different story, but I think that's the job we have as Equal Care in the world, to tell everybody the story so they get to go in the right direction.

There's something about the conversation we had last year when you were explaining to me your journey and how it started because you had taken some time off of work to rethink, what are you going to do? You want to do something impactful.And then you were eating this banana and you had the fair trade label and you're like, oh, we should label actually healthcare and label and say this product, was it tested and researched to see how does it work in men and women and basically gender labeled, so to speak? How do you see that happening now? It's been a year, you've been in all these places. I suppose you're much more optimistic.How can you imagine, for example, for your kids, would that be the norm at some point when they grow up? How do you see this moving forward?

Okay, there's something as a startup founder that nobody wants to hear, but my goal is to be obsolete in the world, that we don't need Equal Care anymore because it's not normal. Because we test on who might use this drug, this intervention, this AI.In the end, there will be a long period that I think Equal Care is necessary because we are in a transition period for this to become normal. But I want my kids to tell the story. My mom invented it and now it's normal.

Thank you.If you wish to learn more about Equal Care, I recommend you listen to episode 72 of our 2024 Women's Health Series, which was my first interview with Thao on Narratives of Purpose. You can also check out Thao's company's website at equal-care.org and to follow Thao's activities, be sure to connect with her on LinkedIn.As always, all these links are available in the Episode Show Notes. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I appreciate you taking the time. Join me again in a couple of days for the third and final episode of our series featuring another speaker of the Women's Health Track session titled "It Starts with Data: Closing the Gap". I will speak to Amanda Leal, who serves as the AI Governance and Policy Specialist at Health AI, the global Agency for Responsible AI in Health.Until then, take care of yourselves, stay well, and stay inspired