From Anguish to Insight: The Birth of BioIQ
A medical tragedy became a turning point for BioIQ’s founder—and an impetus to change the U.S. healthcare system.
2005 started out well for Justin Bellante. As a doctoral student at the University of California Santa Barbara with a publication in Science, he was well on his way to a promising career in materials science. But everything changed in an instant when one of his friends suffered a fatal stroke as the result of an undiagnosed diabetic condition.
“Most of us passively assume that the health care system is going to take care of us,” Bellante recalls. “Yet how could a person who epitomized knowledge and insight be unaware of something so critical? And how can this happen to so many people every day without the underlying conditions being fundamentally addressed?”
As Bellante later learned, his friend may have been saved by a simple A1c or blood glucose test, which almost certainly would have revealed his risk for contracting this devastating disease, and armed him with knowledge to take action.
Bellante was well versed in engineering and quantum physics, a science that deals with logical connections among subatomic systems. Could that knowledge be applied to one of the other most complex systems of all—the U.S. health care system? He saw Netflix disrupting the Blockbuster consumer model, and envisioned a home-testing service that would enable people to detect critical diseases through regular screening in their own home—often before symptoms occur. Personal lab results would be presented through secure personal digital health dashboards, along with targeted information to understand health results and take action. Just as your IQ is a measure of general intelligence, your BioIQ would be a way to measure your health. And so the first digital platform for at-home health testing, the “Netflix-for-healthcare,” as they called it, was born.
Initially, BioIQ launched directly to consumers (D2C), with the goal of validating the model and dialing in a true consumer-centric healthcare experience. However, in 2005 health insurance deductibles were low and most lab costs were fully covered – a very different state than healthcare today. As a result, the team pivoted the model to B2B (business-to-business) sales to employers, health plans, and health systems and embraced the many accompanying challenges as BioIQ expanded digital population health solutions to address diabetes, heart disease, cancer, kidney disease, and infectious diseases, amongst many others.
At the time, most healthcare organizations were focused on the short-term challenge of cutting costs, leaving little time to confront the greater challenge of helping their member populations develop a proactive mindset about their health.
“We realized that there was a fundamental disconnect between the healthcare system and the people needing care,” recalls Bellante. “All the nodes were there—the diagnostic technology, the medical specialists, the methods for presenting information—but no one had taken a systems-level approach to putting it all together.”
BioIQ was built around a two-sided platform approach, creating a marketplace for businesses, and a digital healthcare solution that generated positively reinforcing network effects similar to those popularized by Uber and others. BioIQ expanded the at-home testing model into a platform that could engage a population, and then connect each consumer with testing solutions via at-home tests, lab visits, retail pharmacy visits, nurse worksite screenings, or doctor visits. Essentially, network effects were generated as more clients were added (i.e. demand) and connected with more solutions and testing options (i.e. supply – diverse network supply chain). With this new model, BioIQ launched thousands of Employer health testing programs impacting millions of lives, and expanded to working with Health Systems and Health Plans, increasing the impact to tens of millions of lives.
While clients and supply chain network partnerships were strategically built out, additional focus was applied to the technology platform with early mobile app capability, cloud-based business dashboards, expansive communications (scalable text, email, IVR, live phone, and paper mail). BioIQ acquired a consumer analytics company in 2018 in order to improve population engagement and healthcare outcomes for clients and patients – including early, pioneering ability to identify and focus resources on underserved populations with health inequities and social determinants of health.
In 2018, BioIQ raised $26.5M in institutional capital to fuel the growth of the business. Bellante and BioIQ moved from Santa Barbara, CA to establish a new headquarters in Atlanta, GA in early 2019, taking advantage of the talent pool with over 200 healthcare IT companies to continue to scale the business. BioIQ raised additional capital, $14M, including bringing in a strategic investor later in 2019, before acquiring a telehealth company – a key capability to integrate into the consumer digital health experience from engagement to results and outcomes delivery.
As the COVID pandemic arrived in the U.S., the BioIQ team was faced with decisions as healthcare markets were upended. They moved the company to a fully remote work environment, established tighter scrum-like stand-ups across the organization, and leveraged Team of Teams strategies to increase alignment, communication, and speed of execution. Bellante led the creation of a Public Health Advisory Board, including a former US Surgeon General, a member of Operation Warp Speed, and renowned epidemiologists to develop and expand BioIQ’s digital health platform to become an industry and thought-leading solution to help employers, plans, and providers combat the COVID-19 pandemic. With this solution, BioIQ helped critical infrastructure and manufacturing companies stay open, supported frontline healthcare workers, developed state and federal testing solutions, supported large tech companies, and helped the film and entertainment industry re-open, starting in the key state of GA, and expanding to CA and many others.
Simultaneously, health plan commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid populations were experiencing dramatic reductions in health access and exacerbated health inequities and social determinants of health. BioIQ continued to expand the digital health capabilities, the test menu, and the supply chain in order to meet the need for the healthcare industry to expand access, improve convenience, and bring healthcare to the home. Throughout 2020 and 2021 BioIQ added over a dozen new diagnostic and supply chain partners, hundreds of employer clients, and expanded their health plan book to representing over 80% of insured U.S. lives.
Understanding the need to scale and massive shifts underway in healthcare, Bellante led the process with BioIQ’s Board of Directors and Advisors to position the company for strategic sale, aligning with another strategic partner, LetsGetChecked, to expand BioIQ’s mission and continue to grow BioIQ’s impact. Throughout this process in 2020 and 2021, Bellante and team grew revenue by over 500% and achieved significant profitability while maintaining a constant headcount. At exit in 2022, the annual run rate had increased over 1000% from 2019.
Over the past, decade BioIQ made the Deloitte Fast 500 list 5 times. With a diverse executive team, two-thirds of which were gender, racial, or LGBTQ+ diverse, Bellante helped build a top down approach to supporting and leveraging diversity across the organization to drive growth. BioIQ contracted with almost 100 health plans, hundreds of employers, impacted tens of millions of lives on the way to their goal of 100 million lives, identified millions of undiagnosed conditions, and saved thousands of lives. Over the previous 3 years, greater than 40% of health plan testing addressed underserved populations and those with health inequities or social determinants of health challenges.