Navigating his identity as a German-Iranian-American pursuing the American Dream has given Dr. Babak Movassaghi the flexibility and creativity to reinvent himself several times. Whether he’s obtaining a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, captaining the German NFL football team or founding a company that revolutionizes telehealth, Movassaghi has used an immigrant mindset to thrive. Tune in to find out how his company has kept people safe during the COVID-19 pandemic with its telehealth platform.
Transcript
Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers.
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Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Every Thursday at noon I talk with risk takers, immigrants who create new jobs, products and services in Massachusetts and across the United States building on the entrepreneurial spirit that led them to America in the first place. When we return, we’ll meet this week’s inspiring entrepreneur. When the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, one company was already prepared to offer patients around the world and here in the U.S. expert second opinions from top U.S. medical professionals remotely via telehealth. Dr. Babak Movassaghi founded InfiniteMD in 2016, which connects patients with leading specialists in the United States through second opinion video consultations, thus potentially avoiding unnecessary treatments and guiding patients to better care. It was acquired by a leading clinical advocacy and decision support company, Consumer Medical, last summer. Dr. Movassaghi holds a PhD in biomedical engineering, a masters in theoretical physics and an MBA, and was once captain of the German professional [NFL American] football team. He previously served as VP of innovation and new ventures for Flex, a global leader in design and engineering. There are more than 40 patents in three books to his name, but it is his pivot from physics and football to health care innovation that I find very striking, an extension of his ability to navigate multiple identities as an Iranian German living the American dream. We’ll meet Dr. Babak Movassaghi when we return.
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Denzil Mohammed: Dr. Babak Movassaghi, thank you for joining us on JobMakers. Tell us a little bit about your original idea and where it is now.
Babak Movassaghi: Thank you for having me Denzil. Infinite MD is a company that I co-founded with my two co-founders Christopher Lee and Liz Kuo. The whole idea was, over these years I’ve been in health care for quite some long time now and I, due to my previous jobs, etc., was always approached by friends and family and loved ones that had a medical condition that wanted to basically get a confirmation if they’re getting the right treatment, etc. And I brainstormed around this idea with friends of mine during the time that I was at MIT that had the similar experience, that we just happen to know some top, top specialists and friends from all over the world would reach out, be it somebody with a disease in cardiology or a lot of oncologies, a lot of cancer. “Am I getting the right treatment?” etc. So we did help these friends and family members, but not everybody had access to people like us, unfortunately. So we came around to the idea of providing a virtual remote second opinion business, initially focusing on foreign international patients where they could, interestingly enough, this is five years ago, using Zoom … we selected actually Zoom, nobody heard about Zoom before … as the platform to have these virtual consults, where we would go and collect all your medical records, and then provide that in a digital format to the doctors. So we built a whole case management platform for that, where the physicians, the top specialists were able to review medical records and then give you a remote consultation, a second opinion on your existing medical condition. Where the status is right now, we were quite successful I would say. In particular, when the pandemic hit, of course, telehealth took off. We were able to help a lot of people. That, I’m very proud of. Phenomenal team. But we were also able to be, we decided to sell the company to one of our strategic partners Consumer Medical. We are now part of the larger Consumer Medical family.
Denzil Mohammed: What role do you play with Consumer Medical and where do you see InfiniteMD as a part of Consumer Medical growing in the next few years?
Babak Movassaghi: So I transitioned as a CEO from, initially I was the president of Infinity, then became the CEO, focusing heavily on technology and also on pivoting back to the U.S. market. Our objective was always to go to large employers and payers in order to provide this service to them. One way to do that is you built a huge sales team or, sorry, you built a good sales team that goes out there and tries to sell this product to the large employers to be a part of the benefits. That’s how it works in the U.S. And the U.S. markets versus international markets, this is a free service for, let’s say you work for, I’m just making names up, let’s say you work for Amazon or something and you have part of your benefits also a second opinion service. And the payer pays, the employer pays for that. So another way of getting access to those larger [inaudible] is through channel partners that already have established those collaborations and Consumer Medical was one of them. So now I am after acquisition and integration, I’m the chief innovation and the chief product officer at Consumer Medical. And it’s a much more comprehensive product now because what we did, as I mentioned before, if God forbid somebody has cancer, the doctor doesn’t have to necessarily touch you. So they just look at your images, your MRI images, your bloodwork, etc. See if you have a genetic sequencing done. If not, maybe there’s a, you’re lucky and you have a mutation and you can maybe get some immunotherapy, etc. But then what? Now you get a second opinion, which we changed a lot of lives. Our doctors I would say 40 percent of the time would tell our patients internationally, a lot of international, Oh God, no, you should not get chemotherapy. You kind of won the lottery in cancer and are actually eligible to, best candidate to get immunotherapy after this, what I’m seeing at this sequence.
Denzil Mohammed: And I know that you’ve said in the past that a patient navigator is something that people need just to be able to navigate the healthcare system in the U.S., to be able to understand it, the transparency issues. It’s so complex and so daunting. But I want to step back a little bit. Part of your experience in creating this company was brought on by your experiences with various health care systems around the world. And I would argue that perhaps part of your entrepreneurial spirit was developed in part because you yourself and your family had moved several times and you’ve lived in multiple countries and experienced multiple cultures, multiple health care systems, multiple identities along the way. Guide us through from the very beginning a life in Iran and what prompted your parents to decide to move.
Babak Movassaghi: Yes, I was born in Tehran. I left. I cried. I was quite young, almost a baby and where we decided to move to Germany, we, my parents, decided. That was before the revolution. Or after the revolution kind of and we decided to move to Germany in order to see what’s going on there. My father started in Germany in the past, so it was basically a place that he knew very well. And I don’t have that much, I’m recently getting more experience about the health care system in Iran, but I do gain a lot of experience in the health care system in Germany where I went to school and and basically started initially physics, quantum optics, but I did my PhD sponsored by interestingly a Dutch company, Phillips, with the research laboratories in Hamburg, but in collaboration with Utrecht University, Netherlands. So I was kind of all over the place in Europe in order to pursue my PhD which was focused into the medical imaging. My PhD thesis was on the 3D reconstruction of coronary arteries, basically, for the interventional cardiology in the field of interventional cardiology, which is one of the, by the way, one of the largest, most common procedures in the world where you get a stent. So I was able to understand the health care system better. There are a lot of parallels, of course, but there’s also a lot of pros and cons. So it was very interesting, coming back to the initial question, the transition as a child from all these different cultures. You know Iran, Germany. I also lived in the U.S. as a 11-year-old for two and a half years, by the way, in Knoxville, Tennessee, going back to Germany. So all those experiences have kind of opened my eyes that it really depends unfortunately on the location for getting the right access to health care. At the same time you do have top doctors everywhere. So you do have top doctors everywhere. Just accessing them, it’s hard, and navigating through the health care system.
Denzil Mohammed: I’m interested, in terms of your education, how you swung into health care, and why you thought that was of such importance to you and to others.
Babak Movassaghi: Well, I’ve always wanted as a child to help people to be honest and I know that sounds very cheesy, but it’s really something that I always had a desire, helping people. So as you know in my family we have a lot of doctors which is very typical for Iran then. But I did study medicine actually and physics the same time in Germany and after I decided, Wow, it’s a lot of stuff I need to remember. [Laugh] And I was more technolog- oriented, so I was more interested in creating the tools that physicians can use to save lives. And I thought for me it was all about impact and it still is. And it’s not that I just like health care. I like technology, the combination of technology and health care. But those two combinations is what really drives me. So it’s not just healthcare. And I think technology can tremendously, has helped health care to the next level in every Western medicine category there is.
Denzil Mohammed: What would this have been like, starting a company, a startup in Germany?
Babak Movassaghi: I think in countries in Europe, although I have to say they’re getting much, much better now, and especially in cities like Berlin and Munich, etc., they’re much more risk averse. So it would have been harder for me to raise the money that we raised, Series A and the seed funding that we got. It would have been much harder to, over there it’s harder to get funding after a failure. So assuming that my first time it would have been a failure, and then you’re done in Europe pretty much in my opinion. Why should I give you money? You tried, you burned the money versus in the U.S. if you fail investors, VCs actually don’t mind giving you again another shot. Actually they like that because you have more experience. So I think that would be a bit of a major differentiator.
Denzil Mohammed: I want to bring it into this moment of the public health crisis that we’ve all been experiencing. But before I do that a couple of things that you mentioned I wanted to get clarity on. One is talent. Boston is obviously a hub for very educated people from around the world. What has the makeup of the talent that you’ve been seeking looked like over the years? Meaning, where do they come from? What kind of skills do you look for that might be unique?
Babak Movassaghi: One of the toughest things in running a company is, and this is not my words, this is from one of our investors, Chris Carter always said that one of the toughest things is firing people, but even tougher is hiring people. It’s really, really hard. I think that’s one of the most critical items to have, the right talent, especially in a startup environment where you don’t have the luxury of hiring so many people. So they have to really fit. And in the Boston area I do have to say, especially in healthcare and technology is a huge amount of talent. But one thing that we, I always personally strive for is you have to create a culture where top talent is willing to join. We had the luxury of attracting, and I’m including my co-founder Christopher Lee, to join me on this journey by giving them a vision of doing something that is higher than yourself. If you can create that in healthcare it permits you to do that. Then you all of a sudden are able to attract talent that is even willing to to get paid less, but is working with a vision and for a mission that is higher than themselves. I think that is something that is missing with a lot of folks that just build companies or etc. Yes, they can pay you a lot, but I’ve seen people leaving phenomenal jobs, very well paid, going rather to a company where they get less pay potentially, but they really believe what they’re doing has an impact. So I think that’s what it comes down to. And of course you know the resume is important. There’s a minimum of capabilities you need to have but after that it really comes down to the passion, and to people joining your, creating a mission statement that people believe in.
Denzil Mohammed: And there must have been people who inspired you along the way. Did you have any mentors or anyone who stood out to you as someone who you wanted to emulate as an innovator and a business owner?
Babak Movassaghi: Well, there are many of course. Unfortunately I never met my grandfathers, but I heard so many stories about them. From my father’s side he was a true entrepreneur and he started from zero and became very, very wealthy. And he really was a street smart person. And along the way, as a physicist of course I have a lot of folks, former physicists, not just Einstein and the Hawkings, but also the Newtons and Maxwells that I was really looking up to. How they can see things and just understanding how to bring things together to innovate. So the innovation component was huge for me. Anyway, but I don’t have that. I look at scientists and how people have fixed a problem because at the end of the day an entrepreneur, all you do is fixing a problem on a daily basis. You just put out fires. That’s all you do. And you try to make sure you have sufficient funding, depending on the burn rate. So that’s the skill set that you can find in many, many other areas in life, but that’s a unique skill set. And I think the fact that I was living in so many different countries and had to always learn a new language and try in schoolyards to tell somebody, “How do I buy a piece of chocolate somewhere?” And just to navigate your way around has helped me, I think, to become a better entrepreneur.
Denzil Mohammed: So you talk about putting out fires. And last March we had one big fire that started and then just spread and didn’t stop. It was called the COVID-19 pandemic where the telehealth and telemedicine sectors really obviously took off. How has the landscape changed due to COVID? And what role do you see telehealth being played after this pandemic?
Babak Movassaghi: Yeah, that is true. So telehealth, I’ve been involved in telehealth for quite some time now. And I always believed in it. I did believe that the future in certain areas is telehealth and the pandemic just was a time warp. It was just an accelerator. And before you know, everybody knew Zoom. All of a sudden everybody was looking into case management platforms, how to exchange medical records and how to view CT scans on your laptop, etc. So I believe that telehealth is here to stay. It will never replace 100 percent the face-to-face, patient-doctor relationship. But for primary care, for behavioral health and also for specialty care as a follow up it’s a phenomenal tool that is just going to expand and grow, continues to grow. Will we see the same growth you saw last year? No, I think we’re going to go back, but we will never go back to where we were. Telehealth is something people trust now. I compare that with remote working. People, a lot of companies didn’t believe that their employees could work remotely from anywhere. We showed that we can and the same experiences in telehealth now. And we will even expand on that. To your question, where is this going? I think we will expand in the future, even do remote treatment, or at least starting with remote monitoring. So we can remote your many important parameters remotely today. There are a couple pioneers out there that send you the package, so you, as an example, on a daily basis you can measure your heart rate, respiratory, etc., and then a physician can then, or a nurse kick in if things are about to happen. I think predictive outreach is something that we will be seeing more and more. In the future you will be able to get a call from a nurse all of a sudden who says, “Hey, we are worried that you’re about to get a heart attack. We think you should go to ER right now, because the watch you’re wearing is giving us a predictive [inaudible] readings that the chances of getting a heart attack is like 80 percent in the next two hours.” I think that’s coming. So I see U.S. actually being pioneers in this area. The other country that I also worked with, we have an office in Shanghai. So InfiniteMD, we did provide services to many countries. One of them was in China. I have to say Chinese have been also very advanced in telehealth. These two countries are very advanced and I would say a couple countries in South America are catching up like Brazil. But Europe is still far behind.
Denzil Mohammed: I want to put the idea of telehealth and remote care up against the fact that health care in the U.S. is extremely costly compared to many other countries, including developed countries. We pay a lot more for health care. And polls consistently show that the affordability of health care is one of the biggest problems facing families across the U.S. Does telehealth and specifically Infinite MD help address this problem in any way.
Babak Movassaghi: The short answer is yes. In my personal opinion, in particular, being now part of Consumer Medical, Consumer Medical does help tremendously in saving cost. And we do that in various ways. So let me kill off some of the things you said. And I agree with you. So a lot of people always say that the U.S. doesn’t have a good health care system. And you hear that from a lot of critics, right? Is it complicated? Do I believe that we have a good health care system? I think we have some, the U.S. has one of the most innovative healthcare systems there is. So why is it that wealthy people travel to the U.S. to get treated? Why is it that a sheik from Saudi goes to Cleveland Clinic or Johns Hopkins to get treatment? So we do have some of the best innovation there is. I think the government has done a phenomenal job in funding these research activities. And I’m not just talking about bringing out new vaccines out there. But there’s a lot of innovation that comes out of the U.S. And the health care system in my opinion is, you have access to some of the top doctors in the world here because they’re very, very subspecialized. You don’t have just a doctor that is specialized in lung cancer. We have doctors that are specialized in non-small-cell carcinoma only and they’re really good at that. Now there is a problem. I don’t disagree. Access to health care is a different story. And where we try to contribute to reducing costs is to give that person as Consumer Medical joining hands with IMD. The person that lives in this rural area that needs to drive four hours to go to a top team utilizes our services to have a remote consultation. And then identifying a new treatment that they should get and then identifying an hour or half an hour drive to a top specialist that they could go and see. And that’s where we help because we try to, if you catch a patient that is about to go in the wrong trajectory that’s going to create cost. They’re going to have all these wrong medications given to them. They’re going to have all these X-rays and CT scans, and potentially operations and surgeries that they don’t even need. If you catch them early enough, and we do, then we save everybody because it’s the only time I would say it you could ring true, say everybody wins. So the payers pay less. The patient has a better outcome. And as a society we save costs and increase the quality of health care.
Denzil Mohammed: One thing we didn’t get to talk about was your experience playing professional [American] football in Europe. And you were the captain of the German national team taking your team to victory. And is something that you learned, as you mentioned earlier in your two and a half years in the U.S., as a tween learning to play American football.
Babak Movassaghi: Oh my God. Yeah, that was a crazy ride, Yes so …
Denzil Mohammed: How does a physicist and medical scientist end up on the football field?
Babak Movassaghi: Let me rephrase that. How does a Iranian-born, German kid that moved as a ten-year-old to Knoxville, Tennessee, that was groomed to become a professional tennis player start playing pro football one day, right? So look, I …
Denzil Mohammed: Oh, you just made it so much more complicated.
Babak Movassaghi: [Laughs] Yeah, I mean how the heck did I … I was sent to Knoxville Tennessee as a child to a high school exchange program, junior high school exchange program to learn a language. I lived there with my cousin and I had a blast. And in the cool kids world there is football … and I play tennis. But football gave this team feeling which was very different. As a tennis player mainly along with your coach versus any team sport is just a different dynamic and I fell in love with that. And, look, I’m not the fastest. I’m not tall. And so you know it was really, really a lot of hard work. And you asked me earlier, Do I have folks that I look up to in terms of entrepreneurship? I actually got lucky that I got coaches that believed in me, that recruited me later on. You know teams like the [inaudible], the German champion, Hamburg Sea Devils and then later West [inaudible] Pro All Stars. And then I played together with some really top, top players in NFL Europe. It’s going to take too long to explain how I got there, but the seeds were placed in Knoxville. I came back from Knoxville to Germany and my father said, “You want to do what? Play what?” And I said, “Hot diggity damn!” [Laughs] And so that was a journey. But it also taught me how to never give up. If you have a dream, just pursue it. And once you had a lot of injuries, you just go back out there and give your best. And you can really achieve your dreams if you work really hard at it. NFL Europe was phenomenal. Overall I played 18 years, and then four years pro. Seeing through the years Kurt Warner, quarterback, etc. So those guys were just different, different [inaudible] me. But I worked really, really hard to get there, and I had coaches that believed in me. And the experience really helped me to become also a better entrepreneur, I would argue, because I learned what teamwork means, how it is important to have a vision and to try to pursue a joint goal … win a championship, but most importantly not to forget the joy of getting there. I really not just enjoyed winning, and I was of course miserable when we lost, but I also enjoyed every practice. So as an entrepreneur I would say don’t forget the journey which is beautiful in any sport. The journey to achieving something is beautiful. Every practice should be beautiful. If you don’t have that, then it’s just being goal driven, it’s not OK. Just don’t forget to enjoy. No matter your background, you can really fulfill your dreams in this country. So my experiences as an immigrant have been phenomenal, very positive. And I have never felt so, I know we talked about it briefly. So I lived in New York City a couple years, Denver, Colorado, and Boston, those were my years here, especially in New York and Boston, such a multicultural hub, right? I never felt more integrated than anywhere else.
Denzil Mohammed: Well, that’s actually a really powerful thing to say, and I think especially for our viewers, just being able to look at the multiculturalism of this center in the world, Boston, maybe a little bit differently and a little bit more positively. Dr. Babak Movassaghi, thank you so much for joining us on JobMakers. This was really a fascinating interview. I’m glad we were able to get into the football a little bit too.
Babak Movassaghi: Yeah, you’re most welcome. I really enjoyed it. I love your organization and big families you know and happy to help in any way I can.
Denzil Mohammed: Thank you so much. So happy that you joined us for this week’s inspiring story of another immigrant entrepreneur. If there’s someone you think we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s d-e-n-z-i-l, at jobmakerspodcast.org and please leave us a review. I am Denzil Mohammed. Join us next Thursday at noon for another JobMakers podcast.