A cohort of buzzy digital health start-ups is jostling for a piece of the nation’s lucrative healthcare market but are facing questions over their strategies, pricing and efficacy, with some charging nearly $1500 a month before they’ve publicly launched.
In some cases, customers are paying a hefty premium for a product not yet ready for public launch. One health app, Compound, was charging users $995 a month – more than 10 times the cost of a typical gym membership – before it hit pause on its operations last week.Compound is the men’s longevity arm of telehealth provider Eucalyptus.
“The best care is very human and manual, and that is hard to scale and expensive to scale, so we need to find a way to do that.” That tension between taking the time to deliver a reliable product and not missing the boat is not unique to Compound and is persistent throughout the health app sector. “Bright is a super app for health for everybody that’s affordably priced,” Jordan said. “First impressions count on the App Store, and if we want to be the ‘last health app’ then we have a high bar to cross at the start.
“I’ve yet to hear from independent doctors, surgeons or specialists advocating for consumers to spend $1000 per month to monitor their health, and I’ve yet to read any supporting literature from reputable medical journals“I find it surprising that with these programs, there isn’t a discussion on the consequences of ‘too much medicine’... Following the science and not the trend has always brought better patient outcomes.
Another high-profile player is Everlab, which has received $3 million in venture capital funding from European fund b2 Ventures, as well as local funds Ten13, Flying Fox, and AfterWork Ventures. Hermann said where Compound had largely marketed to young men who could be described as “tech bros” interested in optimising their performance, Everlab’s focus had been on targeting ordinary middle-aged individuals.