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SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 25, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, the venture capital firm General Catalyst announced healthcare visionary Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA, as an Executive-in-Residence. Klasko will leverage his extensive leadership and experience to collaborate with the firm to identify, create, and accelerate new opportunities that fulfill the promise of health assurance, which seeks to create a more equitable, more affordable, and more effective healthcare system that better serves all constituencies. Klasko is the newest leader to work with General Catalyst, underscoring the firm’s commitment to its health assurance thesis, which Klasko co-authored with General Catalyst Managing Partner Hemant Taneja in their book, “UnHealthcare: A Manifesto for Health Assurance”, published just over a year ago.
“As the pandemic slowly recedes, a broken, worn-out US healthcare system remains, and the urgency for accessible healthcare has grown greater. Now is the time to address health equity, reduce the cost of ‘sick care’, and create new models to prioritize proactive care,” said Klasko. “My colleagues at GC and the founders they back share this same sense of urgency and a commitment to identifying and building companies that work in partnership with healthcare leaders to imagine and create a more accessible, resilient system that keeps people healthy and enables them to thrive.”
Named by the World Economic Forum in 2020 as a Distinguished Fellow for the Digital Economy, Klasko is one of the most respected executives in the healthcare industry, known for bridging the entrepreneurial mindset of Silicon Valley with the methodical, traditional academic healthcare system. Most recently, he led Jefferson Health to become one the fastest growing academic health centers in the country as president and CEO of Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health. He serves as a consultant to the Board of Trustees until June 2022. Over the course of his accomplished career, he was dean of two medical schools and CEO of three health systems. He is deeply committed to transforming health care from its traditional focus on “sick care”, to a resilient, proactive system of “healthcare at any address” – designed to bend the cost curve through innovation, make quality care more accessible, and move population health, social determinants and predictive analytics from philosophic exercises to the mainstream of clinical care and payment models. Klasko is one of the leading voices in the nation championing the transformation of healthcare systems in partnership with digital technology innovators for a very different and brighter future.
“It has been a privilege to develop our health assurance thesis in partnership with Steve who has a real insider’s view of how healthcare needs to evolve,” said Hemant Taneja. “We’re looking forward to working with Steve to expand our investment strategy to focus on many of the new challenges that have emerged as this pandemic turns into an endemic.”
General Catalyst is working closely with an ecosystem of over 50 companies that are focused on delivering on the promise of health assurance. The firm has been intentionally bringing on industry leaders like Steve Klasko to deepen its commitment to radical collaboration between technology, healthcare and pharma. In addition to Klasko, the firm is working closely with: Ken Frazier, executive chairman of Merck; Dr. Jennifer Schneider, former president of Livongo; Margo Geordiadis, former president and CEO of Ancestry.com; Ron Paulus, former president and CEO of Mission Health; and Robin Washington, former EVP and Chief Financial Officer of Gilead Sciences.
About General Catalyst
General Catalyst is a venture capital firm that invests in powerful, positive change that endures — for our entrepreneurs, our investors, our people, and society. We support founders with a long-term view who challenge the status quo, partnering with them from seed to growth stage and beyond to build companies that withstand the test of time. With offices in San Francisco, Palo Alto, New York City, London, and Boston, the firm has helped support the growth of businesses such as: Airbnb, Deliveroo, Guild, Gusto, Hubspot, Illumio, Lemonade, Livongo, Oscar, Samsara, Snap, Stripe, and Warby Parker. For more: www.generalcatalyst.com.
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