The Healthcare AI Disruptor You Haven't Heard of

Alexander Gobranowski, sitting with us, telling us all about HealWell AI, how the company is leveraging AI, its sizable presence in Canada to deliver real benefits and disrupt the world of health care.

It's a great conversation. Sit back, relax, and listen to Bob, Lindsey, and I guide you through a conversation with HealWell AI, and you'll understand why there's a lot of buzz with this.

You know, I have to say, I'm really glad, Bob and Lindsey, that we have Hamed Shahbazi, chairman of HealWell AI, and Dr. Alexander Dobronovsky with us, CEO of HealWell AI, to talk all about the intersection of artificial intelligence and healthcare. And, you know, I just think about these two topics, AI obviously getting a lot of headlines, getting a lot of funding, but healthcare, simply a monstrosity, and something that, I mean, you talk to almost anybody and they'll tell you.

My God, does this need to be fixed? It's a mess. So with that, I'm very happy that Hamed and Alex, that you're both here to talk to us and walk us through HealWell AI. What do you say we get started?

[00:01:26] Hamed Shahbazi: Sounds great. Thanks for having us.

[00:01:28] Dr Alexander J Dobranowski: thanks very much.

[00:01:29] Chris Versace: Oh, excellent. So let me, let me just start with kind of a big question.

And I noticed Alex in particular, that before you were with Healwell, you were at MCI one health, a large primary care network in Canada, 850, 000 plus patients where you were really working and leveraging, technology for primary care services, but you were also in your past life, a co founder of DeepScreen AI.

And these kind of jumped out at me and I was wondering how do you go from that into HealWell? What was it that attracted you to HealWell?

[00:02:05] Dr Alexander J Dobranowski: Sure. Thanks, Chris. And I may just start with my background before that too, as, as I did my medical training And did some of my specialty training in diagnostic imaging.

And that's really where I got to witness some of the most exciting technology in in health care evolve very rapidly. Right? Radiology is one of the first specialties to apply machine learning or computer assisted diagnostics. and that kind of inspired me to then, take a leap as an entrepreneur, I started a company called deep screen, which was focused in that, that medical imaging sector.

And, and then my eyes were open. And I think similarly to the problem that Hamed is trying to address with the company that he runs, which is called WellHealth, right. And he's the chairman also of HealWell. Is that look the same application of technology that that was applied to medical imaging can be applied to all the data that's captured in primary and specialty care.

So, I was running a company called MCI One Health, which had a large clinic group, and then also had this budding beginning of artificial intelligence technology that could screen clinical records. and that's really where my paths crossed with. My chairman Hamed, where he was building and running the largest health care group in Canada with a big presence in the U.

S. And we ended up going down this path, which, you know, almost a year and a half later led to the launch of Healwell, where I had then divested the clinics into Wellhealth. And Hamed and I aligned and joined forces where we then recapitalized the company, launched it 11 months ago. So HealWell is still a pretty new name, but it's through our partnership together where we're really moving forward on this mission to improve preventative care.

That's kind of the steps that brought me to where I am today.

[00:04:02] Chris Versace: Okay. And then,

Hamed, what's vision for HealWell? Because as Alex just kind of laid out, you're, you're wearing multiple hats and it seems that you've got some strategic vision for where you want to take the intersection of, you know, technology and health care.

[00:04:17] Hamed Shahbazi: it's a great question. And look, I think maybe just starting with where health care is at in terms of the potential for data science and artificial intelligence. You know, health care is a data intensive business. It is probably the most data intensive business in the world. It generates about 30 percent of the world's data from an total industry perspective.

And the growth of that data is roughly 36 percent year over year growth, which is really just astronomical if you think about it. And this is just because of the complexity of health care. You can just think about the complexity of our bodies, the, trillions of cells in our bodies, and just all the different vitals and all of this data that we produce, whether it's user generated data, or it's data that's generated by the healthcare ecosystem that tries to support us all. This is starting to find its way into unified and nonunified, data repositories where you have a bunch of structured and unstructured information.

And all this has been quite compelling to think about, but the act of actually unlocking this data to advance health outcomes has really been lacking for the longest time. We've known this data is out there. In fact, doctors have been quite frustrated about it. They've been inputting data constantly into these EHRs, these electronic health records, and they're not really getting much back.

And. What we've seen, and we all know we live in a different world since, you know, generative AI came out. I mean, AI has been around for a long time, the ability to use machines to mine data and learn from data and identify anomalies. That's been around for a while. It's getting better. and that's already affected our world to a great extent.

But this generative AI revolution that we've now been through over the last couple of years has really changed everything. And I think is now accelerated all forms of artificial intelligence in, an array of sectors. I mean, there's no sector that's going to evade the effect of artificial intelligence.

And so. HealWell AI is really our answer to that. as well health technologies, you know, the largest owner operator of outpatient medical clinics in Canada by a huge margin, you know, we'll do about a billion dollars in revenue this year. And a big part of that is clinical revenue.

We also have one of the largest digital platforms in the country that support about 37 percent of all physicians rely on. One form or another some of our digital tools to run their practices. We have a lot of data. We have a lot of involvement in the healthcare ecosystem. We see where all the inefficiencies and challenges are and the ability to add AI to help physicians with copilots, you know, we've heard a lot about copilot, you know, Microsoft, Excel, copilots and PowerPoint and, you know, Canva and Adobe, you know, what about physicians with this incredible amount of data In these patient repositories, and that's what we've done.

I mean, effectively, Well knew, I knew that this is where health care is heading. And I knew that I, I needed to be as a company that's well steeped in, health care technology and digital technology to support health care. I knew that this had to be an area. that we have deep involvement with if I had any chance of being relevant in the healthcare industry in 5 to 10 years, and that's why we started and got involved with health, with Healwell.

[00:07:31] Chris Versace: So it sounds if I can kind of in a nutshell, if you will, there's a lot of data, a lot of signals, and you're trying to make some intelligent. Use of that for better health care. Is that is that a fair?

[00:07:43] Hamed Shahbazi: Absolutely. You're absolutely right.

[00:07:44] Chris Versace: So, so 1, 1, 1 of the big things I think that people talk about with is the ability to streamline process.

is that really what we're talking about here? Or is there like another aspect to it kind of identification?

[00:07:58] Hamed Shahbazi: I think it's both. think, with all this data sitting around in these repositories, 1st of all, not all of it's very organized. So just the ability to interpret and organize data.

Artificial intelligence is going to be very, very important just because, so much of the data is Dirty and what I, what I mean by dirty, it's, not perfectly arranged in tabular format where you can search it properly. It's doctor's notes. It's machine printouts from various different diagnostic equipment and all this stuff.

Basically get sucked into a an electronic health record and all this data sort of sits there and imagine just how difficult and time consuming it would be to read everything and integrate the information. so the 1st thing that all this does is it just makes sense of it and or helps organize it.

And then what it does is that it takes all this complexity and creates. Simple, powerful insights. Signal, as you noted, then empowers health care providers to take preventative care actions, which really impact people's lives.

[00:09:01] Chris Versace: So Lindsey, when we were talking before about preventative health care, I think you had a question that you wanted to ask these guys.

[00:09:07] Lindsey Bell: Yeah, no, I mean, there's so many, like you said, the data that you have when it comes to the health care system, because it's so big, we're constantly learning more, you know, there's so many different ways you can go in the ecosystem. And obviously, WellHealth as an outpatient center has a lot of data. What drove you to focus on preventative care versus another part of the health care industry. Is this really the best application for AI right now? Or is it the best application for you for your business as you build it out?

[00:09:36] Hamed Shahbazi: It's a great question. I think it is to some degree the most important question. I mean, if you are going to deliver better patient outcomes, you have to catch things.

As early as humanly possible, and in health care, time is everything. I'll give you a great example of that cancer. Right. So we all have in our bodies. Cancer cells that cells that are not acting in line that are you know, essentially not multiplying in the way that they should, but they're typically just addressed by our immune system.

and they're sort of dismissed or, addressed in a small state, if cancer is not identified. Early enough, it starts to grow literally into its own living entity to a point where at some point in time, you need to take actions like radiate it or cut it out or take some very invasive, difficult actions that could harm the rest of the body because cancer effectively as time goes on.

fights for its own survival inside your body. And so there's nothing more important than catching these things before they kind of take on a life of their own. And so preventative care is really health care. I would argue that everything else is sick care and not really health care.

Right? And so too much of our ecosystem is about sick care is about taking symptoms and, just trying to do something to overcome those symptoms, as opposed to catch these things a bit earlier. while that may draw in some, costs, you may increase some costs short term.

You dramatically improve the overall. cost of that patient's life over time because you've addressed these things before they become more serious. Healthcare costs are, you know, famously much higher at end of life for all of us. And that's because when serious things happen, that's when our costs go up.

And so this is all about avoiding serious things from happening.

[00:11:32] Lindsey Bell: And I think to the point you make about cost. That's so important. When we think about the health care system, I think, especially in the United States, you were always thinking about ways to eliminate costs, whether it's whether it's for the, you know, the health care providers, the insurance companies or the individual, and especially individuals or companies.

And I think that that that is always a clear, very clear focus on that for for everybody. When you think about you have AI, that's doing a lot of different things. To address the preventative care market because you have well health AI, but you also have These other business units, these other companies that do different parts of the health care ecosystem within AI.

Talk to us about WellHealth AI and exactly what you're doing. Is that the AI that you are developing in house? Are you utilizing AI languages from some of these companies that you've acquired over time?

[00:12:26] Hamed Shahbazi: Yeah. So a big part of our strategy at HealWell has been to both acquire and develop companies that, that have real fundamental AI capabilities, meaning like they have the ability to structure unstructured, you know, data and and be able to create simplicity from this kind of complex web of data.

And then our strategy is to then integrate that AI into our own mature operating businesses and that's because these mature operating businesses have. Patients they have platforms that serve health care providers at scale. So, you know, anytime you're building a business, it's not enough to just have a validated ability to do something special, like, you know, to have a scientific discovery and to demonstrate that you can do something you have to be able to commercialize that thing that you have just demonstrated you could do.

You have to build a business around it. You have to have sales people. You have to have operations. You have to have the ability to create awareness of your product and service. And so one of the things that we love about. This, this strategy that we have that that that leverages are M and a program is that we're buying companies at the intersection of health care and the pharmaceutical industry that would be dramatically improved by AI.

So, for example, like, well, health, we have clinics all over the country. serving millions and millions of patients. The ability to have a physician co pilot for us is enormously valuable. And so, and so that integration with us is really valuable. But then also on the pharmaceutical side, HealWell has bought a contract research organization, a CRO or contract research organization typically carries out most of the clinical trials and orchestrates the activities of a lot of the pharmacy companies when it comes to actually, managing, you know, patient identification, finding patients for trials, orchestrating them, moving these types of things forward and the ability now to go to the pharmacy clients of those of that CRO and say, hey, we can already do the CRO stuff for you.

Now. We can accelerate it because we now can go to wells database of millions of patients. And we can help you acquire. Patients from that, that are specific to your requirements. And maybe before it would've taken eight months to find the appropriate number of patients for a trial.

We can do it in two weeks now. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that AI kind of drives, and this is why it takes. Forever to get FDA approval for stuff because you got to go through multiple trials. You got to manage these trials and all this stuff is being done the same way it was done like 50 years ago.

[00:15:01] Lindsey Bell: it totally makes sense. Like when I look at your three business lines, you divide them into AI and data science. Healthcare software and then your clinical research and patient services, which you just talked about. It's a very thoughtful way to put the different levels of operations together is there something you're missing that you need to add in in the process in this little ecosystem that you're building within the healthcare space?

[00:15:25] Hamed Shahbazi: I think it's a great question. We don't think so. We think the scope of the business has been well defined now. Now it's about going deep. In each 1, we want to go deep in, really all that digital software that's supporting healthcare providers. We want to be able to do a very deep work in terms of population health at the public sector level.

So, this is now not just looking at a, at a. For patient level, but being able to bring that up to a public sector level and demonstrate to them what weaknesses there are in their strategy to provide health to a whole group of people because there's huge money being spent at healthcare at at sort of the.

The state level, or the country level, or a region level, and to be able to give people insights on that is enormously valuable. And then to be able to go very deep on CROs. We think that we can, with our AI technology, digitize, modernize, and AI enable CROs, and we don't think that's There's anything more important than that for the pharmaceutical industry, because it's going to dramatically move that industry forward.

It's going to speed things up and pharmacy has a lot of. financial power, they're 15 to 20 percent of the entire. Cost of health care that we have the 4 trillion dollars. Think about that. 15 to 20 percent of that cost is with the pharmaceutical industry, but they don't move fast.

They would love to move faster and they're relying on those foot soldiers, which is their CROs and we're going to tech enable them.

[00:16:56] Lindsey Bell: What's the greatest pushback that you get for that business model? What are the challenges that you run into as you think about scaling it and expanding and growing it?

[00:17:06] Hamed Shahbazi: the biggest challenge, what I love about our business is it's very independent. It's not dependent on a whole bunch of other people doing things so that we can one day be successful. You know, I, I used to run a middleware company before starting well, and, it took forever to make that company successful.

I eventually sold it to PayPal and it was a good outcome, but you I learned a real lesson with that business. I never wanted to create another business that was reliant on other people to do a bunch of things before I could make money. And, and, and so HealWell does not have that problem. It has. The benefit of being independent and empowered.

And so I would tell you that, it's susceptible to the everyday challenges of any business that's acquiring, growing organically in an organically, like anytime you acquire a business integration is more important than the actual acquisition itself, aligning cultures, developing process, but, you know, we're, we're good at it at well.

We've done now over 85 acquisitions. Over the past 7 years and we've never written off 1 dollar. So I'm really proud of that. And so we are our corporate development team and machine is sort of behind Healwell and helping HealWell you know, really penetrate and, exercise all those, all those M& A opportunities.

So we feel very, excited about our ability to execute here. And really In our first year of operations, we've done four acquisitions. most companies don't do that in their lifetime. We've done that in our first 10 months.

[00:18:35] Chris Versace: so Hamed, when you think about the three segments that Lindsey just talked about AI and data science, healthcare software, clinical research, patient services, is there anyone that you get more excited about that you see really driving the business forward?

Or is it, are they kind of equally balanced for opportunities?

[00:18:52] Hamed Shahbazi: It's a great question. Personally, I'm excited about the CRO modernization. I just think this is a sector that, hasn't changed forever and it's, enormously vital to how the pharmacy industry works.

and what I love about it is there's, Lots of little CROs everywhere with very talented people. This is a people oriented business and they understand. the needs, they understand the process, they understand what it's going to take to get these clinical trials done, but they have not really digitized very much.

And, you know, it's incredible that in 2024, we still have pockets of our, of our, of our services economy that are under digitized. But this is 1, listen,

[00:19:32] Chris Versace: listen, I went to the doctors not too long ago, and I had to fill everything out. Paper, which is ridiculous in my opinion, but Alex, if we ask you the same question, you know, are you which business are you very excited about among the three?

Is it the same? Or do you have a different opinion?

[00:19:49] Dr Alexander J Dobranowski: I think Hamed, right? Because he's a technologist, an engineer and entrepreneur. He's really salivating at the opportunity in the clinical research space. .

[00:19:58] Chris Versace: Hamed, did you hear that? He just called you the

[00:20:00] Dr Alexander J Dobranowski: triple threat.

[00:20:01] Hamed Shahbazi: you know, I mean I'll try.

I'll try. And, you know,

[00:20:05] Dr Alexander J Dobranowski: that opportunity, I just wanted to say is absolutely staggering. Okay. So, so Hamed already mentioned, right, we're talking about, you know, there's nearly 5 trillion spent on healthcare and just nearly a trillion that's spent just in the life sciences paradigm. So when you look at our mission as a company of HealWell, it's early disease detection.

so picture this for a moment. We got, we got WellHealth that, that sees, you know, five, six million patients a year and growing, okay, and growing at a, at a pretty steady clip. We're partnered with other hospitals, including ones in the U. S. So we have access to right now, compliant access to be able to deploy our technology and screen records at scale.

And the end result of that is finding those patients that have been misdiagnosed or undiagnosed. And that's super important, right? Because Now, these patients are on a on a care pathway way earlier. Okay, we're talking years, like 7 to 11 years earlier, if we didn't screen, and it was kind of left to the own processes of the health care industry.

But also when we identify these patients. The next step after their diagnosis is confirmed, well, the physician's thinking, okay, well, I'm going to start them on a therapy, but damn, some of these diseases are really unfortunate. Is there a clinical trial where they're a suitable candidate for? And some of these trials are lifesaving, but patients aren't recruited into them in a timely way.

And those trials are just sitting there waiting. So you can picture what we offer at HealWell as we are accelerating the whole therapeutic and research paradigm for healthcare. We want to identify those patients, get them on their care pathway way sooner, and then invariably they'll end up into what sometimes, like I said, could be really life saving research, etc.

So, so that's a long way to answer your question, Chris, that Yeah, I'm most excited about the impact we can have on therapeutic development and like, there are drugs around the corner, you know, customer novel therapeutics that. That can now aggressively target cancers, for instance, like malignant melanoma, which five year survival rate used to be under 10%, you know, just years ago.

And now there are curative technologies, right, that are either right now, you know, actually in market or coming, right? So if we can accelerate that, man, we'll make a big impact in terms of five year survival rates and how we even think about things like cancer. I'll just add one more point because I think, everyone has been touched right by an experience of somebody having a serious issue.

That's caught late. Right? Hamed has me too. And so we're also thinking about really important areas of health, like endocrinology issues and the burden they have on society and diabetes. And a really important one is cognitive health, dementia, et cetera. And because of how big well health is, right, in primary care, we can find those diseases years earlier when they're at the most early stage, right, compared to when somebody's finally going to go see a specialist and has advanced Alzheimer's, right?

Like, That's what really we're most passionate about.

[00:23:22] Chris Versace: I welcome that. as Bob knows, my, my dad is riddled with dementia. And it's, it's Sorry to hear. It is one of the, it's one of the cruelest diseases out there. It's, it's a slippery slope and you're, I mean, you know, your, your brain melts and you're not even aware of it.

It's it's horrific. Absolutely horrific. But but I do know that Bob did have a couple questions. He wanted to ask you.

[00:23:47] Bob Lang: Hamed. It's just a delight to hear your excitement. Enthusiasm. How AI is going to revolutionize and change this this whole health care system. It's great to hear that. What though distinguishes?

Your company compared to others in the industry.

[00:24:02] Hamed Shahbazi: I'm glad you asked. Yeah. I, think it's a couple of things. First of all, with HealWell, we have truly validated AI technology that is, leading edge. I mean, we are. In some cases, you know, we have validated and identified and being able to execute on cases that have never been able to be executed on before.

For example, we've been able to use text from an EHR to stage head and neck cancers first time that's ever happened. That's been published in 1 of the world's leading medical publications. we have been able to identify where lung disease. Cancer patients based on again, just, just being able to look at, just text from an EHR, right?

That, looks at all this structured and unstructured information is able to then really parse that information, make sense of it, correlate the right data points, integrate them and identify, patients that may be exposed to certain diseases. So I think that really strong foundational AI capabilities.

1 reason. The 2nd reason is that we don't know of another company, actually, that has the ability in house. Between its different parts to be able to produce these AI insights and have access to the data all under 1 roof with the health care providers to oversee and triage those interactions and have the ability to work with pharmaceutical companies directly with CROs so having all of that under 1 roof. And when you consider the well health network and how it powers from a data perspective, this data availability, if you have the AI, that's great. If you have those algorithms, but you need you need data to.

improve those and to be able to to detect disease detects patients. And so to be able to do that all under 1 roof, we don't know of another company that can do that anywhere.

[00:25:56] Chris Versace: it's interesting, right? Because I know folks. You know, several months ago, people were concerned about, say, Google's position in AI, and my stance was, geez, they own YouTube.

They're the king of search, right? They have access to a tremendous amount of data. They will figure this out. But in your case, it's interesting, because I don't think, you know, coming into this conversation, I really put the pieces together. And really what you're talking about is, it's through WellHealth and its reach that you can collect this data.

Right. And you could actually you have a working model that you can then mimic elsewhere. But, you know, I think Alex, I think Alex said 5 to 6 million patient visits a year at WellHealth. So, so my, my only question is. How do you get these patients to opt in and share the data so you can grow your model?

[00:26:51] Hamed Shahbazi: Well, that's actually what I was just going to say before, before you brought it up. It's one thing to have the data. It's another thing to have the consent to use the data.

[00:26:59] Chris Versace: Yeah.

[00:26:59] Hamed Shahbazi: And, and cause there's all these people say, Hey, we have access to all this data. It's like, well, did anyone say you could use it?

Well, that's, what's amazing about the well network is that. Our ability to execute at the clinic level, we're going to the clinic level. And when people come for their appointment, we are asking them for this consent in a detailed and unambiguous way. We're not trying to slide it by them. We're saying, here's what we'd like to do.

We'd like to be able to, basically. Use machines to touch your data for the purposes of executing on operational things inside the clinic, or to have machines actually look through and identify, gaps in care, you know, things of that nature. But to also.

You know, the latest consent that we've added and that we're adding currently is we'd like to also proactively tell you if there's a clinical trial that may be of interest to you without that consent. We can't really do that. And that is really, really exciting. And so it's because a lot of people make these claims.

It's like, hey, like, we've got access to a lot of data, but they can't really use it. And that's what's really, really, really interesting. And that's where my mind gets for it. It's like, we can execute at scale. We've got the algos. And we've got the data, but more importantly, we have the ability to draw consents to that data.

[00:28:16] Lindsey Bell: So, what percentage of well, health clients are consenting if you have that? I don't know if

[00:28:21] Hamed Shahbazi: you today, because, you know, our network is growing very quickly. Probably we're approaching about 2 3rds of our entire network has. Digital consent at the point of care. so you get there and you will just to be able to go do your visit, you're interacting with some kind of self service automated kiosk, or if you're doing self check in through your own.

Phone and, you will be, going through these consents in order to go see your, doctor. And if you have any questions, you can go to the front desk and ask about them. there's a whole informed. Dialogue, if you want one right there, this is hard to do, because you have to execute at the clinic level.

You know, we have 6000 people as part of this company. Right? So you have to be able to go there and say someone could say, hey, I don't really understand this. What does this mean? Someone at the counter there will have to. Tell them this is what that means. This is why it's important. That execution is what's hard.

[00:29:14] Lindsey Bell: is that like a bottleneck too? There's been research recently about how products. Products and services maybe that have AI attached to them or, or, or advertised with ai, whether they utilize significant AI or not is a different story. But the, the ones that are attached to it, the consumer has a negative perception because they don't understand it.

I'm sure that'll change over time, but is that a bottleneck that you're seeing as you're looking for consent?

[00:29:43] Hamed Shahbazi: Yeah, I think you're really right. I think, there's a view of like wonder with these things, but then there's also a lot of fear. fear about misuse of my data, fear about, you know sharing without my knowing, which is, you know, these aren't unreasonable fears.

Right. And so I think it's like anything in life. Right. It's like when you are straight up with someone and you're unambiguous and you are clear. And they have to make a decision, then they can make an informed decision. And it's a question of trust. I think we're in a really interesting position because people are trusting us for their health care.

And we're the ones asking them for these consents. If we were like, an intermediary that was rolled out, and it was like, hey, these guy wants your data. Are you cool with that? I think that'd be different because it's like, you know, that company and that service provider that's serving you every time you come in that you've built a relationship with that.

You, you look at their faces when you walk in. They're the ones asking you for this. And this is what's so cool about having all of this under 1 proverbial roof. If you will.

[00:30:43] Chris Versace: So let me ask you this because I, I think this might crystallize something. It's very apparent that WellHealth is an established business, you know, millions of visits, it could go along perfectly fine, you know, on its own standalone business.

Maybe at some point it could leverage AI, you know, from another company, you know, to do some of these things. But it sounds like that HealWell really needs WellHealth. Right. it's the proving ground for it. You can develop the models, show the benefits that you're trying to do, and then you can monetize it increasingly outside.

is that a fair way to think about this?

[00:31:21] Hamed Shahbazi: totally. I don't think there would be nearly as much excitement around HealWell were it not For Wells for that strategic alliance. And this is actually why the company's valuation exploded after. I mean, it's, it's still early days and there's still so much room for it, but it's just that initial growth in valuation and interest came as a result of people's intellectual awareness that.

Well, AI is interesting, but it dies on the vine without data. they're getting access to enormous amounts of data. What does that mean? Right.

[00:31:51] Chris Versace: Right, it gets back to Bob's, question about your competitive positioning, right? if there aren't a lot of other companies that have all these pieces, particularly the well health on the access, it just sounds like they're, they're going to start, 100 yards, 100 miles, call it what you will behind.

[00:32:07] Hamed Shahbazi: Totally.

[00:32:08] Lindsey Bell: that sounds like it's part of your acquisition strategy too, because I was going to ask this earlier is you're buying smaller businesses to create this greater. I don't know what you want to call it. This, this greater company with, with the 3 buckets of segments. But it sounds like those smaller companies couldn't thrive as significantly on their own because they don't have the access to the data.

They might have the great, like you said, algorithm. AI or software or whatnot, but they're not all connected and this connects everything together, which is perhaps the genius in the business model that you're building.

[00:32:44] Hamed Shahbazi: Yeah, I, think you're right. I mean, look, the way I think about it is the backbone of health care is the health care provider.

Still, it's going to be a very long time before, even if robots and AI are very good at what they do the same way that we won't get into a plane unless they're a pilot, even though the onboard computer runs the plane. We trust healthcare providers and well is the largest, physician group, the largest group of healthcare providers in Canada.

And, and it's got a huge footprint in the United States as well. and it starts there. the core value proposition associated with this business is about seeing patients and supporting them, but there's a significant amount of data exhaust that comes off that for learning.

Right? and as well as founder and chairman and CEO, I think about myself, I think to myself, how do I unlock the value of this to help advance health care to help advance that health care provider? And this is why Healwell makes a lot of sense for us because I want to make sure that we are providing those, those tools and those capabilities so that we can amplify physicians because that's the 1 big thing that.

Most of the world is struggling with is growing population and not enough physicians to support that population. So, you're going to be in a lot of, bad soup there, tough times if you can't find a way to close that gap. Well, closing the gap, I don't think you should rely on the fact that there will magically be more physicians.

so how do you deal with this? Well, you have the amplification of physicians. Physicians have to become so much more. Efficient their output needs to improve, and this is where the tools and algorithms come in and so this is what's so important to us. And this is why the ability and people say, you know, is this about monetizing data?

I say, no, it's about mobilizing data. It's about mobilizing data to help all 4 corners of this healthcare ecosystem. I'm not worried about monetizing data. I'm, I want to drive value. And then I always believe that. once you drive value, then monetization becomes a byproduct of delivering value.

Right? we don't sell data. We're not interested in selling data. We're interested in mobilizing data to help drive and improve the performance of physicians, the performance of clinics, helping the scientific industry, the industry, the pharmaceutical industry. If you can do these things, you, you will find monetization opportunities.

[00:35:11] Bob Lang: Do you see the U. S. government as a potential customer for you with data from Medicare?

[00:35:16] Hamed Shahbazi: Unquestionably, we, we see every government as needing to do this type of work at scale. and this is where it gets, like, challenging and exciting from a data science perspective, because the computational need for that is so great.

but if you do a good job of that, you start getting insights to where you need to spend your money. And this is the thing, like, most of the world's 40 countries that have modern medical systems, you know, they spend more on health care than anything. What people don't recognize about, let's say, the United States is that the US spends Probably about seven eight hundred billion a year on defense.

They spent many multiples on that on health care. So, when people start thinking about, I mean, because everyone thinks defense defense has got to be the biggest thing on Earth. No, we spend more on health care. but are we all spending wisely? And this is not just the US conversation either in Canada.

We're 1 of the top 5 spenders in the world on a per capita basis. And it's crazy to me because we spend. Probably let's call it about 350 billion dollars a year here in Canada. And only about 13 percent of that is going towards physician spending. So you think about that 87 percent of our spending is going to things other than physicians and who provides care physicians.

[00:36:28] Chris Versace: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy.

[00:36:31] Hamed Shahbazi: That's crazy. So we're spending money on equipment facilities, research, but. I would bet you there's a lot of money that is being wasted, by most countries. So someone's got to turn the light on. And that's what AI starts to do for you.

[00:36:44] Chris Versace: I

 mean, those problems. They're only going to get worse. You know, you, you mentioned how healthcare costs balloon at end of life. You take a look at the aging population that we have, whether it's, the U. S. or other other parts, you know, the world, we're going to be upside down pretty soon.

Right. So those costs are only going to explode even further. And at least in the US, if you start to think what that means for Medicare, that's, I mean, that's, those are staggering numbers. So it's, you know, as an investor, you always look for pain points and solutions. that's where the opportunity is.

But let me ask you this, though, Hamed. So, in the presentation that you guys provided with us, you know, very risk growth. You know, I think your forecast this year was for, I think, 41, 000, 000 going to 72, 000, 000 in 2025, but. It seems to slow down after that. And is that are you guys just being cautious with your forecasts?

Maybe there's other acquisitions that get done or just just help us understand that, steep ramp to kind of like a speed bump, if you will.

[00:37:45] Hamed Shahbazi: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So what you're seeing is, is our investor deck and in our investor deck, because of the way securities laws work we're really not. Permitted by our legal advisors to consider new acquisitions

[00:37:59] Chris Versace: right? That

makes

sense.

I mean, you can't

bake in what

you don't have.

[00:38:02] Hamed Shahbazi: Right? So this is really based on just our existing business without the benefit of our inorganic. Growth program, so you're seeing just the organic growth, whereas the vast majority of our growth has come at the hands of our inorganic growth.

So it is likely to be multiples of what you just talked about.

[00:38:22] Chris Versace: All right, well, let's, let's, let's not, you know, let's, let's not over promise. But so it begs the question, I think you said you've already done four acquisitions inside of roughly 11 months. How, how big is the pipeline, right? Are you guys courting a lot of different companies and, are you really reliant on that for growth?

[00:38:40] Hamed Shahbazi: Yeah, so look, I think what we are working on is, the type of inorganic growth, meaning like M& A that triggers and activates organic growth. consolidators that acquire companies for living, they typically grow at around 3, 4%. We're committed to not only maintaining a significantly high inorganic growth rate, but to maintain a, significant double digit organic growth rate.

And that's what well has done. So, really, we're taking that well, blueprint and applying it to HealWell, and this is why I'm pretty confident that we will continue to execute at Healwell, because that, well, it's the same. Corporate development team, the same philosophy, the same, the same approach, within 7 years at a billion in revenue and 130 million in EBIT does what, what, what I believe, you know, we're expecting this year in terms of guidance, you know, somewhere between 127 and, and, and 130 million with very significant and, you know, free cashflow conversion off that.

And. While we're doing that, we are experiencing significant double digit organic growth. That's the piece that's really exciting and unique in our ecosystem is being able to maintain a high enough quality of your operations where you are still able to grow organically, and you're not reliant on.

on the M and a, and this is exactly what we want to do. And what we're doing with HealWell, our. Organic growth with Healwell right now is. significantly in the in the double digits. I mean, depending on the, particular line of business that you look at, it's anywhere from 10 percent to.

50%,

[00:40:20] Chris Versace: And is the bulk of that, just to bring the conversation kind of full circle, I asked you guys earlier about, you know, the segment you're most excited about, you know, clinical research. Is that where these superior organic growth opportunities are? Or is it one of the other business segments?

[00:40:35] Hamed Shahbazi: You know, the CRO side has good, strong organic growth, but I would say we're even seeing higher organic growth in some of our core AI businesses you know, where we have these AI algorithms that are taking on new projects as a result of validating, new scientific accomplishments and driving our, co pilot sales and things of that nature.

The growth there is coming off a smaller base. So it's obviously going to be higher percentage of growth. The CRO stuff is a good, strong grower for us. And I do think that that will be key because what are the nice things about CROs is that. They aren't typically recurring revenue.

They're more episodical and project based revenue. There's a recurring element to it. so it does become fairly predictable over time. But, that actually is very helpful from a multiples. of purchase multiples perspective, true SAS revenue has very high multiples you know, revenue that has a reoccurring element to it, but is truly recurring as much lower multiples, which is great for us.

So, I love the idea that I can buy, you know, CROs and really improve them. So now I get the benefit of their, organic growth, and I can amplify that growth. Off a multiple that's not as compelling, or, not as large and I can start to integrate true SAS opportunities within that CRO.

So, so, in the future, think about it as a dashboard that the pharmaceutical industry can have. To have access to real time data, real world intelligence into our data network. So this becomes interesting. So, there's potential for SAS revenue there. The arbitrage there in terms of buying at a lower multiple and converting your business to a higher multiple is also very exciting.

[00:42:21] Lindsey Bell: I'm over here like laughing because if you're taking advantage of that lower multiple business to then create more value, which is awesome. Yeah. So thinking about remind us, though, how much have you raised in cash and deployed and how much cash? I think as of June 30, the presentation I looked at, you had 14.

5Million in cash available. are these acquisitions? How are you doing them? Are they cash? Is there equity component convertibles? What are you doing?

[00:42:47] Hamed Shahbazi: They typically have a cash stock and earn out component. That's pretty important to us for capital efficiency and, and, and making the best out of our dry powder.

So, when we think about our dry powder analysis, we think, , perfect world, cash stock and earn outs are in, 3 sort of equivalent portion. So, if you add all of our in the money warrants. You know, you start to get to a much higher cash base for the company. Let's call it, you know, closer to 30 million you know, 25, 30 million.

Let's say, so, so if you add the stock and the earn out to that, suddenly now your dry powder availability is closer to 90 million. Right. so that's why it's really important. And this is 1 of the ways that we've been, and I, I like her announce, even though they're the, they're the most litigated aspects of, of MNA, if you do good structures, and you're fair with people, and you have good culture, these are great ways of getting people.

Bought in and focused after the deal closes because, you know, once a deal closes, someone just spent, you know, 5 or 10 years of their lives creating a business and they got some liquidity. It's only human to think to, to kind of take a break. It's just like, huh, you know, no big sigh of relief. I you know, was able to build my family and put some food on the table.

And now I got some liquidity. What next? But if you have an earn out and you're going to get more of that liquidity over time, you, there's a very good chance. You're not going to take that big break and you're going to stay focused on your business and deliver. That's what we've seen. So that's what we like to do.

[00:44:22] Chris Versace: Well, I got to say, Hamed and Alex, I, this was far more than I think any of the three of us thought it was going to be. It just sounds extremely exciting. And it also sounds like you're still in the very early days of what you're doing. And I, I can tell by the enthusiasm that you guys have that you're just energized to tackle this big problem of health care.

Hopefully. Improve what we're seeing, leveraging technology, including AI, obviously, but I'm going to have to say you guys are going to have to come back in, you know, six months, a year and give us another update on where you are, because I think we're all going to be waiting with baited breath rooting for you at the same time

[00:45:04] Hamed Shahbazi: with pleasure.

It's been, a lot of fun and a great pleasure to be with you today.

[00:45:08] Chris Versace: Well, thank you so much. And we'll have you back on. Awesome. Thank you.

[00:45:12] Dr Alexander J Dobranowski: Thank you. Nice to speak with everybody.

[00:45:14] Chris Versace: Thanks, Alex.

All right, folks, that's our conversation with HealWell AI. My thanks to Hamed Shahbazi, the chairman, and Dr. Alexander Dobranovsky, the CEO. This is where we talk about what we learned. So, Lindsey, going straight to you, what did you learn? What did this reinforce?

[00:45:31] Lindsey Bell: I mean, this was a really exciting conversation for me, Chris, because what they're doing, you could just you could just feel the energy in the conversation with them.

And I thought what was the most important was the question you asked is, is how their organization al structure matters. You know, they've got the patient access to utilize the AI on that then they utilize their software platforms for. I'm being too wordy. Can I just start over?

[00:45:57] Chris Versace: No, you're fine. You're fine. Look, you said I was right. That's all that matters. Lindsey, we can end it there. Bob, what about you?

[00:46:04] Bob Lang: I thought it was very interesting conversation talking about the quickness and the speed with which they can get the data processed. My parents are older in their late seventies, early eighties, and they have difficulties today here in the United States.

Trying to get current great treatment from doctors and getting the data correct. And unfortunately, I did have a relative who was misdiagnosed and this is a topic that Hamed talked about is very important of them to try and solve the problem. And I think that that is a key issue over there, which is really interesting.

And, of course, the cost containment issue is is a big one as well, too. Lots and lots of waste, especially here in the United States with health. They can tackle that. They're going to doing a yeoman's job.

[00:46:54] Chris Versace: No doubt. No doubt. You know, during our conversation, I shared with everybody something about Google and AI.

And as I thought more about the conversation that we had with Hamed and Alex, I'm almost thinking that they're, they have the potential to be as disruptive as Amazon was on shopping. And what I mean by that is, . Amazon, to me, where they really excel is removing transactional friction. So if these guys can do the same in the health care industry by removing operational friction, I just think that would be fantastic.

They would be able to enable companies to really trim a lot of the fat. If you guys listen to the show, obviously you're, you did because you're still here now you heard that, what was it? 13 percent of all money healthcare money spent in Canada only goes to physicians. There's a lot of waste in that other 87%.

I just sit back and I think, my God, what are those numbers for the US? Because we know it's only going in one direction as our population ages. I just think this is going to be a company to watch.

[00:47:57] Lindsey Bell: No doubt about it.

[00:47:59] Chris Versace: Well, hopefully we'll have these guys back on and, you know, several months and we'll get a great update.

But folks, you know, I would encourage you to go look at HealWell, AI's investor relations presentation, read up on their financial filings. And when you're done, you'll have hopefully a better picture of the company and you'll be saying to yourself. Now, I know why there's the buzz with HealWell AI.