Sēqster Exits Stealth with Web-Based Tech for Managing Health Data

Sēqster team, from left Xiang Li, Ardy Arianpour, Dana Hosseini, Matt Patterson

Sēqster, founded in 2016 to develop technology that enables individuals to aggregate and manage all of their own personal health information, emerged from stealth mode Wednesday.

Comparing itself to the personal finance platform Mint.com, the San Diego startup says its platform integrates personal health information from a variety of sources, including electronic medical records (EMR), wearable devices, and genomics data. The data are integrated in a comprehensive display for each user (see below). The company said it already connects to more than 1,000 healthcare providers, comprising over 2,000 hospitals and clinics nationwide.

In a statement, Sēqster (pronounced seek-ster) said it is establishing partnerships with healthcare providers that will “become the pathway for rolling out its direct-to-consumer offering later this year.” For example, in a separate announcement Wednesday, Seqster outlines its plans under a new partnership with Boston University’s Ryan Center for Sports Medicine & Rehabilitation that could help to create an online community for patients and families with traumatic brain injuries.

“We have created the Sēqster Research Portal which allows any academic or pharmaceutical clinical trial to rapidly enroll participants into their study and aggregate all available health data directly from the source,” Sēqster CEO and co-founder Ardy Arianpour says, according to the statement. “We are proud that Boston University Ryan Center and Dr. Rhoda Au selected Seqster to be their digital health platform that will advance the study and care of brain injury patients.”

The Ryan Center’s proof-of-concept study aims to identify digital biomarkers of traumatic brain injuries among concussed patients and to possibly improve the clinical diagnosis and treatment of head injuries. BU’s study will enroll concussed patients with acute traumatic brain injuries and subjects who participate in contact sports and are currently seeking medical attention at the Ryan Center for either brain injuries or injuries not related to the brain.

Over time, Sēqster said it also plans to offer other services, such as helping patients and their families navigate personal care for both acute and chronic diseases, and to help users enroll in clinical trials for experimental drugs.

Sēqster has been laying plans for a Series A investment round to support its consumer launch, according to a spokesman for the company. It has raised more than $4 million so far in seed funding, and a team of 15.

Arianpour was previously the chief strategy officer for San Diego’s Pathway Genomics and senior vice president for business development at Ambry Genetics. The team also includes co-founder and CTO Xiang “Sean” Li, chief innovation officer Dana Hosseini. Matt Patterson, former medical director of the Naval Special Warfare Center in San Diego and erstwhile McKinsey consultant, is serving as a strategic advisor.

Seqster health data dashboard
Seqster integrated view of health data (Seqster image used with permission)

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.