Recently, a16z Bio + Health general partner Julie Yoo spoke with Nikita Singareddy, cofounder of Fortuna, and Florian Otto, cofounder of Cedar. They talked about why healthcare affordability is reaching a breaking point, how AI voice agents are transforming patient financial experiences, and what it will take to leapfrog decades of administrative burden in Medicaid—from 30-page paper applications to legacy technology systems built in the 1990s to the real opportunity for giving every American a "five-star healthcare experience."

Resources:

Follow Julie Yoo on X: https://twitter.com/julesyoo

Follow Nikita Singareddy on X: https://twitter.com/singareddynm

Check out Fortuna: https://www.fortunahealth.com/

Follow Florian Otto on X: https://twitter.com/flottobrasil

Check out Cedar: https://www.cedar.com/

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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see http://a16z.com/disclosures.

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Out-of-Pocket is a healthcare education company founded by Nikhil Krishnan that helps people understand how healthcare works and how to navigate it in practice. In this episode, a16z investing partner Jay Rughani and Nikhil discuss why health insurance is losing its role as the default way people access care. They explain how rising costs are pushing more consumers to pay out of pocket for diagnostics, preventive care, and navigation. The conversation also looks at what this shift means for startups, AI-powered tools, regulation, and access as healthcare continues to move beyond insurance.

Resources:

Follow Jay Rughani on X: https://twitter.com/JayRughani

Follow Nikhil Krishnan on X: https://twitter.com/nikillinit

Read Out of Pocket’s 2026 Predictions: https://www.outofpocket.health/p/out-of-pockets-2026-predictions

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Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16z

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Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX

Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details, please see http://a16z.com/disclosures

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Cofounders Jeremy Wohlwend and Gabriele Corso join the a16z podcast to discuss the launch of Boltz, a public benefit company building AI infrastructure for molecular biology. The conversation explains how breakthroughs following AlphaFold moved the field beyond protein structure prediction into modeling biomolecular interactions and binding strength, why open-source Boltz models saw rapid adoption across pharma and biotech, and how that work is now being productized. They outline the launch of Boltz Lab, a platform that brings protein and small-molecule design agents into scientist workflows, Boltz’s decision to operate as an infrastructure company rather than a therapeutics company, and how AI could reduce early drug discovery bottlenecks by improving molecular design and speeding iteration between computation and the lab.

Resources:

Follow Gabriele on X: https://twitter.com/GabriCorso

Follow Jeremy on X: https://twitter.com/jeremyWohlwend

Follow Jorge X: https://twitter.com/jorgecondebio

Follow Zak on X: https://twitter.com/zakdoric

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Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX

Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg](https://x.com/eriktorenberg

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

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In this episode, a16z GP Julie Yoo sits down with Peter McCanna, CEO of Baylor Scott & White Health, to break down how one of America's largest health systems is transforming from a supply-driven "walled castle" to a customer-centric ecosystem, and how it's achieving a 10% operating margin while most hospitals struggle to stay in the black.

They get into why helping his father navigate healthcare convinced Pete the entire system is fundamentally broken, what differentiates academic medical centers from community health systems, and why traditional hospital economics root out essential services like behavioral health. Peter also explains how ambient AI reduced physician burnout rates by 70%, why AI will eventually replace any job involving human-screen interaction, and what he looks for in startup partnerships beyond just TAM and business fundamentals.

Resources:

Follow Peter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-mccanna-784619104

Follow Julie on X: @julesyoo

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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

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A labor and delivery nurse who ran Senate healthcare policy now manages $1.7 trillion in federal health spending—and she runs her team like a startup.

Steph Carlton, Chief of Staff and Deputy Administrator at CMS, reveals the OKRs driving Medicare and Medicaid, why they're killing social determinants funding while building consumer health apps at scale, and how real-time provider data could collapse the 18-month lag between care delivery and payment.

The team mixing founders with policy veterans is rewriting quality measures around VO2 max and app engagement, not just disease management—because preventing illness years before it happens might finally be worth more than treating it after.

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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see http://a16z.com/disclosures

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Drug discovery has doubled the flow of candidates, but approvals remain roughly flat. The constraint is development, not discovery.

In this episode, a16z General Partner, Jorge Conde talks with Formation Bio cofounder and CEO Ben Liu about building a modern pharma company around clinical execution. They discuss Formation Bio’s hub-and-spoke model for acquiring and advancing assets, how AI compresses trial timelines and costs, picking winners, regulatory strategy, and what it would take to move from about 50 approvals a year to many more. They also touch on global competition and why clinical proof still drives value in today’s market.\

Timecodes:

0:00 Introduction

0:38 Why Formation Bio? Origins and Mission

1:12 The Real Bottleneck: Clinical Development

4:56 Formation Bio’s Business Model

7:50 Picking Winners: The Art and Science of Drug Selection

11:54 First-in-Class vs. Best-in-Class Strategies

14:04 Overcoming Regulatory and Market Challenges

17:26 The Stakes: Can We Approve More Drugs?

19:07 How Formation Bio Cuts Cost and Time

21:43 AI’s Role in Drug Development

25:10 The Future: From 50 to 500 Drug Approvals?

35:18 Global Competition: The Rise of China

39:28 The Path Forward: Data, Regulation, and Access

41:47 Conclusion: Realizing the AI Revolution in Pharma

Resources:
Find Ben on X: https://x.com/BenjamineYLiu

Find Jorge on X: https://x.com/JorgeCondeBio

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Listen to the Raising Health Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4fjb8YTzHDuPBgDXc3ElkR

Listen to the Raising Health Podcast Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/raising-health/id1529318900

Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

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Josh Weiner left Meta to return to CVS Health with two painful realizations: consumers don't manage their health—they expect it, and the healthcare market fundamentally violates every principle of economics. In this conversation with a16z's Julie Yoo, the CVS Senior VP explains why 50% of Americans can't afford a healthcare emergency, how CVS is becoming a platform to solve structural healthcare problems, and why the future depends on consumers finally controlling their own health data.

Timecodes:

0:00 The Healthcare Market Isn't Functioning

2:30 Consumers Don't Manage Health, They Just Expect It

3:39 Why Consumer Playbooks Die in Healthcare

5:41 Motion vs Progress: The Innovation Illusion

8:46 Platform Philosophy: "It Takes a Village"

11:38 The Vaccine Paradox Under One Roof

19:37 The 40% Hidden Reality: Healthcare Is Caregiving

21:04 The Deductible Comprehension Crisis

22:10 "This Does Have an Expiration Date"

24:40 The Health Passport Future

Resources:

Find Josh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshweiner2/

Follow Julie on X: https://x.com/julesyoo

Stay Updated:

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Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16z

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Listen to the Raising Health Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4fjb8YTzHDuPBgDXc3ElkR

Listen to the Raising Health Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/raising-health/id1529318900

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

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For the first time in human history, we can diagnose thousands of genetic diseases—often for under $1,000—but we still can't treat most of them. The problem isn't understanding what's broken; it's delivering the fix to the right cells.

Eric Kelsic, CEO of Dyno Therapeutics, joins a16z's Jorge Conde to explain how AI-designed protein shells are solving gene therapy's delivery crisis. They explore why Huntington's patients can now get 15 extra years of healthy life, how Dyno inverted the liver-to-brain delivery ratio by 1000x, and why capsids evolved by nature are now being designed by machine learning models trained on millions of variants.

Eric introduces the concept of genetic agency—humanity's first-ever ability to take action at the DNA level—and details why solving delivery for common diseases will make ultra-rare disease treatments economically viable. Plus: what happens when gene therapy requires neurosurgery today but could be a simple injection tomorrow, why recent deaths in clinical trials prove we need better technology now, and how genetic medicine could become as routine as surgery within our lifetimes.

Resources:

Follow Eric on X: https://x.com/ekelsic

Follow Jorge on X: https://x.com/JorgeCondeBio

Learn more about GATC 2025: https://www.dynotx.com/gatc2025

Stay Updated:

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Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16z

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Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711

Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

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