Ijmal Haider is the founder of Razi Blog and co-host of the web series ‘Help Us YYC’. Both are focused around advocating the importance of mental and physical well being while dealing with Chronic and Invisible Illnesses. Ijmal was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis in 2015. He graduated with a degree in Urban Sociology, in 2011, his love and focus has always been on the importance of community and the importance of social interactions to create unity. This has been a practice he has followed through his career and life by traveling around the world and empirically studying community and culture, and now something he is practicing to raise awareness with UC and other invisible illnesses.
How do you #turnyourlyfeon?
Working on myself is important, balancing my diet, staying active, keeping up on mental fitness helps keeping that momentum to tackle life with Chronic Illness. Never stop fighting. In life I have had to come face to face with adversity on numerous occasions, I have had to fight the odds, and I have had to prove my worth and value. For me, turning my lyfe on is no different; nobody in this world will fight harder for you than you, so never stop fighting for yourself. Part of succeeding in that fight is surrounding yourself with a community to help you #turnyourlyfeon when you feel you can’t fight anymore, shedding your life of the unnecessary negativity, and having people who will encourage you to the finish line rather than weigh you down. Some days you may lack the positivity to #turnyourlyfeon but if you have a strong enough community around you they will pick you up when you’re down and heal you when you’re weak, and forgive you when you’re broken.
Dane is the Founder of CrohnsColitisLifestyle. His passion for natural medicine began after a personal life threatening battle with Crohns Disease & Ulcerative Colitis. The disease left him unable to walk, eat any food, be without extreme drug use or constant care. Through his personalized program, S.H.I.E.L.D, he was able to discontinue the use of any conventional drugs, recover 60lbs of lost weight, restore all aspects of his life and now help others do the same.
Krystal is the co-founder of a cannabis health & wellness company, Kanabé Goods Co. After a long battle of being sick and overlooked, she was diagnosed with severe fistulizing Crohn’s disease in 2010. Her disease was presenting in atypical symptoms making it very hard to pinpoint, and after years of sickness and weight loss, her intestine was so damaged it resulted in many trips to the ER. With that, high doses of opioids and prednisone were the norm while waiting for a resection surgery. After the procedure, Krystal had been looking for balance in her life with the main goal being remission. She discovered medical cannabis was a great alternative to prescription pain medicine, and aided with the anxiety of dealing with a chronic illness. In 2016, she began making cannabis infused balms and oils to rub directly on pain points, or ingest as an alternative to smoking, and was able to use her personal marijuana license to develop these products that otherwise would not be found in regulated markets. These non-intoxicating methods of using cannabis spurred the idea that it can be used for health and wellness in everyday life; the same as taking a vitamin or using a muscle rub. She wanted to enable others suffering from IBD and other chronic illnesses the same relief she found with cannabis, thus Kanabé Goods Co. was born. Kanabé is bringing cannabis topicals, tinctures, and capsules to market with Canadian cannabis legalization in 2018 focusing on health and wellness rather than intoxication. Krystal’s hope is to empower others to be an advocate for their own health and wellness. She aims to educate on the benefits that cannabis products can offer as an add-on to traditional therapies for IBD.
A magna cum laude graduate of Vanderbilt University, Rebecca has lived in Manhattan for nearly 20 years, where she has worked as an Integrated Marketing Executive specializing in full service custom branded partnerships. After nearly a decade at Conde Nast Publishing group, she now focuses on conversation based digital tech innovations for e-commerce, fashion, retail and lifestyle brands such as eBay. In the 24 years since Rebecca was first diagnosed with Ulcerative colitis, she has undergone 6 major surgeries including the removal of her entire colon and creation of a j-pouch in 2016-2017. Rebecca is a staunch IBD awareness advocate and top national fundraiser, sitting 3 boards for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation’s: Young Professionals, Spin 4 and the Patient Education Advisory. In her free time Rebecca loves to exercise, travel, spend time with family and volunteer.
Tina Aswani Omprakash is a Crohn’s patient and award-winning patient expert and health advocate based out of New York City. She has had Crohn’s Disease for 15 years and has had numerous surgeries. Tina maintains a blog and advocacy platform called Own Your Crohn’s (http://ownyourcrohns.com) and recently co-founded IBDesis, a community for South Asians living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Her overarching aim is to normalize the rhetoric around chronic illnesses and disabilities in order to help diverse groups of patients own their ailments to live fuller, happier lives.
Via her writing, lobbying, social media advocacy, and speaking engagements, she spearheads public health causes, including those proposing research and creating awareness for IBD, life-saving ostomy surgery, gastroparesis, fistulizing disease, and initiatives supporting health equity for women and racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities.
Tina is pursuing her master’s degree in Public Health at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine. Additionally, she has spoken at many premier GI conferences and does freelance work for non-profits as well as ostomy manufacturers, in addition to pharmaceutical and digital health companies. Her aim is to help companies recognize disparities and unmet needs in minority health populations.
The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation recognized Tina in 2021 for her phenomenal leadership and powerful impact on the IBD community with the Above & Beyond Volunteer Award. Tina’s blog was also recognized as a 2020 Best Blog by Healthline, and she was awarded the 2019 Healio Gastroenterology Disruptive Innovator Award by the American College of Gastroenterology for moving the needle on GI care for patients.
Michael B. Fensterstock is currently Managing Director of Sales, Marketing & Branding at Epicured, a healthcare company using food as medicine. Inventing since he was a child, Michael loves innovating and creating tangible value. Michael has started companies and has been CEO of a luxury lifestyle company he created. He has served as an advisor to technology companies and was #31 world ranked doubles squash player. He is actively involved in StreetSquash, an after-school youth enrichment program that combines academic tutoring with squash instruction, community service, and mentoring.
Michael attended Bowdoin College where he played baseball, golf and captained the squash team and has guest lectured at Johns Hopkins University where he completed his MBA. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and two sons.
Louise lives with three chronic autoimmune Diseases: IBD Crohns, Type 1.5 diabetes and a mild psoriasis. She is actively fighting for awareness about Diabetes and IBD. She has been in the media many times and is continuously booked for speaking engagements about her life journey, and how to maintain a positive attitude. Louise is also a Patient Entrepreneur who has teamed up with Lyfebulb to create ‘Bling Your Pen,’ a DIY case for your insulin pen.
Despite being hospitalized 20% of her life due to many years of serious Chrons and 25 surgeries, Louise choses to welcome every single day with a smile on her face, and is one of the most positive people in Denmark.
Winners to receive monetary prizes for creative and robust patient-driven business solutions to address inflammatory bowel disease
MINNETONKA, Minn., and NEW YORK (July 26, 2018) Lyfebulb LLC and UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) have selected Jon Margalit of Complete Start as the winner of the first-ever Lyfebulb and UnitedHealth Group Innovation Award “Empowering Patients: An Innovation Challenge in Inflammatory Bowel Disease.”
Second- and third-place prizes were awarded to Vik Kashyap of Toi Labs and Scott Sundvor of Nima Labs, respectively.
The Innovation Challenge was open to established companies of all sizes whose founders have been affected by inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), whether as a patient or through a loved one, and who have created a product or service to address an issue encountered by IBD patients.
Jon Margalit founded Complete Start in 2017 to provide convenient, nutritious breakfast shakes for IBD patients and others seeking healthy meal replacement alternatives. Toi Labs, started by Vik Kashyap, makes innovative toilet seats that collect data from waste to improve health and wellness. Nima Labs was founded by Scott Sundvor to launch the world’s first portable gluten sensor.
“Each Innovation Challenge award winner has launched a health care company with a mission and passion for improving the lives of people afflicted with inflammatory bowel disease,” said Dr. Deneen Vojta, UnitedHealth Group Executive Vice President, Research & Development. “We believe their products and services have great potential for getting to the market and making the strongest impact on people’s health and quality of life.”
Eleven finalists joined Lyfebulb and UnitedHealth Group in Minnetonka for the two-day challenge. An expert panel of judges selected the first-, second- and third-place winners with awards of $25,000, $15,000 and $10,000, respectively.
The panel included experts from the patient, business and medical communities including Rebecca Babcock, a Patient Ambassador at Lyfebulb; Shomit Ghose, General Partner at ONSET Ventures; Dr. Karin Hehenberger, Founder and CEO of Lyfebulb; Dr. Gerard Honig, Translational Research Manager at Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation; Dr. Scott Ketover, President and CEO of Minnesota Gastroenterology, P.A.; and Dr. Deneen Vojta, Executive Vice President of Research & Development, UnitedHealth Group.
“We salute each of our Patient Entrepreneur finalists and UnitedHealth Group for helping us bring focus to issues confronting and solutions for people affected by IBD,” said Dr. Karin Hehenberger, Founder and CEO of Lyfebulb. “All our Challenge participants share our vision of reducing the burden of chronic disease. We appreciate the support of the IBD community in sharing its insights into unmet patient needs and putting forth a tremendous pool of applicants for this Challenge.”
IBD comprises a group of disorders in which the intestines become inflamed, probably as a result of an immune reaction of the body against its own intestinal tissue. The disease category covers Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. About 3 million adults nationwide reported being diagnosed with IBD as of 2015, compared with 2 million adults in 1999.
About Lyfebulb
Lyfebulb is a chronic disease focused, patient empowerment platform that connects patients, industry (manufacturers and payers) and investors to support user-driven innovation. Lyfebulb promotes a healthy, take-charge lifestyle for those affected by chronic disease. Grounded with its strong foundation in Diabetes, the company has expanded disease states covered into Cancer and Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
See www.lyfebulbprod.staging.wpengine.com, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Karin Hehenberger LinkedIn, and Lyfebulb LinkedIn.
About UnitedHealth Group
UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) is a diversified health and well-being company dedicated to helping people live healthier lives and helping make the health system work better for everyone. UnitedHealth Group offers a broad spectrum of products and services through two distinct platforms: UnitedHealthcare, which provides health care coverage and benefits services; and Optum, which provides information and technology-enabled health services. For more information, visit UnitedHealth Group at http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/ or follow @UnitedHealthGrp on Twitter.
Contact:
Lyfebulb
Karin Hehenberger, M.D., Ph.D., CEO
917-575-0210; Karin@lyfebulb.com
UnitedHealth Group
Tyler Mason
424-333-6122; tyler.mason@uhg.com
NEW YORK, Jan. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Lyfebulb, a chronic disease-focused, patient-empowerment platform that connects patients, industry and investors to support user-driven innovation, is partnering with UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) to launch an innovation challenge featuring new businesses and products aimed at treating inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, up to 1.3 million people in the United States are affected by IBD, which includes Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Lyfebulb and UnitedHealth Group will help raise awareness for the conditions and stimulate user-driven innovation. By linking entrepreneurs with representatives from UnitedHealth Group and Lyfebulb, the partnership will spotlight the entrepreneurs’ efforts and ideas, and provide professional discussion, direction and inspiration.
The innovation challenge, to take place in the spring and summer of 2018, will be open to entrepreneurs living with IBD, or who have family members living with IBD, who have founded a company to develop an innovative idea for better management of IBD using pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices or consumer products. Eligibility criteria and official rules will be announced by Lyfebulb in April. UnitedHealth Group will host an innovation event in July for 10 finalists. A panel of judges will award cash prizes to three winners, to be used for their company’s further development of the winning innovations.
“Patients living with chronic disease and caregivers caring for someone with chronic disease understand the many challenges they face and are often in the best position to offer tangible solutions,” said Deneen Vojta, M.D., executive vice president, Research & Development, UnitedHealth Group. “UnitedHealth Group’s partnership with Lyfebulb will help place the patient at the center of early-stage innovation, thus providing us a unique opportunity to learn from and be inspired by patient-entrepreneurs.”
“This partnership with UnitedHealth Group in IBD means a tremendous amount to Lyfebulb in our efforts to enhance patient-driven innovation,” said Dr. Karin Hehenberger, CEO and Founder of Lyfebulb. “Continuing to build on the concept of patient entrepreneurs and partnering with leaders across health care are key components to fulfilling our mission to improve the quality of life of people living with chronic disease.”
Press Contact for Lyfebulb:
Karin Hehenberger, MD, PhD, CEO Lyfebulb, phone: 917-575-0210 email: karin@lyfebulb.com
About Lyfebulb
Lyfebulb is a chronic disease focused, patient empowerment platform that connects patients, Industry (manufacturers and payers) and investors to support user-driven innovation. Lyfebulb promotes a healthy, take-charge lifestyle for those affected by chronic disease. Grounded with its strong foundation in Diabetes, the company has expanded disease states covered into Cancer and IBD.
See www.lyfebulbprod.staging.wpengine.com, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Karin Hehenberger LinkedIn, and Lyfebulb LinkedIn.
About UnitedHealth Group
UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) is a diversified health and well-being company dedicated to helping people live healthier lives and helping make the health system work better for everyone. UnitedHealth Group offers a broad spectrum of products and services through two distinct platforms: UnitedHealthcare, which provides health care coverage and benefits services; and Optum, which provides information and technology-enabled health services. For more information, visit UnitedHealth Group at www.unitedhealthgroup.com or follow @UnitedHealthGrp on Twitter.
Press Contact for UnitedHealth Group:
Jim Merwin, Senior Director, ERD, phone: 952-936-6070, to email: james_merwin@uhg.com