G51 STUDIO
I build companies, products, and technologies that make it easier and more enjoyable for people to get and stay healthy.
Co-founder of Edwin Health and Vagus Labs, part of the Prehype network. Twenty years of independent work in behavior design and health technology.
Arabella Labs
Arabella is where I do digital product innovation. I've spent much of my consulting career here, helping to start and build health care companies, including Ophelia, Origin, Ro, Parsley Health, Calibrate, and others.
The hard part of building a product was never the engineering. It's defining and then redefining what the product is, who it's for, and how they get value from it, and finding out quickly when you're wrong.
Ophelia
At Arabella Labs, we built the health tech stack that powers the member and clinician experience at Ophelia, a digital health company providing medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder.
Origin
At Arabella Labs, we built the Origin platform, a digital health company providing providing physical therapy for women and mothers.
Ro
At Arabella Labs, we built the complete MVP for Roman, a digital health company for men’s health.
Northwell Health
I advise and consult with Northwell Health on developing new digital products and coaching services for alcohol moderation and substance use disorder.
Sense Health
As a product advisor and investor, I helped build a modern SMS-based communication platform to help health care providers more easily communicate with their patients outside the office. Acquired and now part of Personify Health (formerly Virgin Pulse).
companies i've started
Edwin Health
I’m a co-founder at Edwin Health. A care plan tells someone what they should do but says almost nothing about whether they will. We built Edwin to support the person, not the plan.
Edwin enables digital health companies to deliver AI-driven behavior-change programs within their patient-facing apps without exchanging protected health information. I lead strategy and product.
Vagus Labs
Vagus Labs is a lab, not an operating company. We invent and hold IP.
The work is a set of patented methods that use subtle vibration, light, and electrical pulses to induce resonance in the cardiovascular system and increase baroreflex sensitivity. In plainer terms, it trains the autonomic nervous system through the body rather than through the head, in forms that can fit inside wearables, hearables, and other devices. The portfolio is commercialized through partnerships rather than by building products ourselves.
Chompers Club
Chompers began as a studio project at Prehype with Novozymes. The unfair advantage was theirs: a natural enzyme that activates when a dog chews.
Over 90% of dogs develop periodontal disease. Dental toys and treats don't prevent it, and almost nobody brushes their dog's teeth daily as vets recommend. We paired the enzyme with a series of chew toys so the dog does the work and the owner only has to maintain a simple habit.
We spun it out of the studio, and I helped lead and build it. Acquired by Bark and sold today as Bark Bright.
Miavita
Founding team member and VP of Product Development. We built internet-based health and wellness programs personalized to a person's health risks and lifestyle, covering healthy aging, cardiovascular health, diabetes, cancer prevention, and smoking cessation. This was in 1999, roughly a decade before anyone called it digital health. Acquired by Matria Healthcare in 2005.
Foresite Labs
I led an effort at Foresite Labs to formalize the process of building a new venture studio. This included how new business opportunities in health care are identified using data science and what evidence a concept owes you at each stage before real money moves.
Venture studios at Prehype
Citi, RBS, Unilever, Pfizer, Danone, Leo Pharma, Mondelez, AmFam, Novozymes, Dow Jones, News Corp, Arla, BAE Systems
Led and facilitated building new digital businesses for some of the world's finest corporations through the Prehype venture building framework. 55 concepts built since 2011. $1.5B value created across concepts. 40+ corporate partners.
Indigo
At Prehype, I co-founded a new venture to help people in retirement find the right tools and resources to help them discover what’s next.
Nutrimom
At Prehype along with Danone, I co-founded a new venture connecting moms with experts who guide them through pregnancy and the first two years of life.
Steven Dean
Steven co-founded Edwin Health and Vagus Labs. He has worked independently for twenty years, building health companies, products, and technologies with founders, startups, and large organizations.
He began his career as an actuary, first in MetLife's student program and then at Mercer, where he worked with employer clients to design their benefits programs. In 1991, he left to run a furniture studio and, a few years later, earned an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design.
He's been building digital health since 1999, when he joined the founding team at Miavita and set its product and technology strategy through the company's sale to Matria Healthcare in 2005. Since then, his work has taken three forms: building products with health care companies through Arabella Labs, starting his own ventures, and helping large organizations build the infrastructure to do this themselves.
Along the way, he helped pioneer service design, the Quantified Self, and health innovation. He founded the New York chapter of Quantified Self in 2009. He taught for twenty years at Rhode Island School of Design, Parsons, and NYU ITP, and served as founding faculty for the School of Visual Arts' MFA in Products of Design, where he taught through 2023. He holds six patents.
He continues to advise and collaborate with researchers, startups, and established organizations seeking to rethink how health is designed and delivered.
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