NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Levels, the first biosensor system to give real-time feedback on nutrition and lifestyle, today announced the appointments of Taylor Sittler, MD to Head of Research and Development and Lauren Kelley-Chew, MD to Head of Clinical Product. The appointment of Dr. Sittler and Dr. Kelley-Chew signals a new chapter of growth for Levels as the company continues to attract top talent and advisors from an array of backgrounds, all of whom are unified in the company’s mission to solve the metabolic health crisis.
Taylor Sittler is a physician entrepreneur who founded genetics startup, Color Genomics, and women’s health company, The Cusp, in an effort to personalize medicine, prevent disease and diagnose infection. Prior to Color Genomics, Sittler was a resident in clinical pathology at UCSF where he worked on research projects in breast cancer, leukemia, and pathogen detection. He earned his MD at UMass Medical School and went on to work at MIT. He also worked at UCSD under a Howard Hughes Medical Training Fellowship. He is also a Board-certified Pathologist by American Board of Pathology. At Levels, Sittler will guide and support research and development at Levels on their path to enable millions of people to change their behavior to avoid disease.
“Personalized medicine is the way we have to practice medicine in order to be effective. I am beyond thrilled to join Levels to help provide critical, individualized feedback people need to maintain their health,” said Sittler, Head of Research and Development at Levels.
Lauren Kelley-Chew is a physician entrepreneur with a background in private equity focused on tech and healthcare investments. Kelley-Chew took her quantitative skills from private equity into the clinical space, earning her MD from the University of Pennsylvania where she was a Gamble Scholar. During clinical training she realized how broken the medical system is, which led her to found a Y Combinator-backed digital therapeutics startup for chronic digestive diseases. Most recently, she led strategy and business operations at Verily Life Sciences (formerly Google X), focused on devices and emerging products. At Levels, Kelley-Chew will be focused on clinical product development and building out the company’s clinical business.
“Building a quantitative skill set as an investor really shaped how I think about problems, products and businesses from the perspective of opportunity and risk,“ said Kelley-Chew, Head of Clinical Product at Levels. “As Head of Clinical Product, my goal is to build Levels into a big business that helps as many people as possible, spanning diverse demographic backgrounds, healthcare needs, and life experiences.”
More than 128 million Americans have prediabetes or diabetes. Of the 88 million people with prediabetes, 90% of them don’t know they have it. Levels’ mission is to solve the metabolic health crisis by tracking glucose in real-time and providing granular visibility into how diet and lifestyle choices affect health.
“We are ecstatic to partner with Dr. Sittler and Dr. Kelley-Chew to build the future of healthcare, where individuals are equipped with the tools to understand and optimize their own bodies and health throughout their lives. With Taylor and Lauren joining Levels — both physicians and former founders — we are entering an exciting phase for the company of clinical product development and greatly expanding our research and development capabilities. Both of these areas are integral to achieving the impact we aim for, and we are thrilled Lauren and Taylor are leading these areas,” says Dr. Casey Means, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Office at Levels.
In the same way fitness trackers quantify physical activity and exercise, Levels measures the impact of one's diet and lifestyle on metabolic health by pairing continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) technology with intelligent software. The $199 annual Levels membership includes access to purchase CGMs, at-home blood testing and nutritionist guidance, as well as access to the Levels app, which provides real-time analysis on how food, exercise, and other lifestyle decisions are impacting your health. Currently in closed beta, Levels has a 150,000+ person waitlist.
ABOUT LEVELS HEALTH
Levels makes it easy for people to see how their diet affects both their health and their lifestyle in a quantifiable way by measuring biomarkers in real time. We are expanding access to continuous glucose monitoring and making it mainstream, focused on people looking to find their optimal diet and improve their metabolic fitness. Our customers are losing weight, optimizing exercise performance, and developing ideal versions of their dietary philosophy of choice.
Casey Means MD (Stanford), Josh Clemente (SpaceX, Hyperloop), Sam Corcos (CarDash, YC), David Flinner (Google), and Andrew Conner (Google) founded Levels to reverse the trend of metabolic dysfunction. Almost 10% of the United States is diabetic and that number is increasing at an increasing rate—88 million Americans are prediabetic and 70% will be diabetic within 10 years. We're starting with the performance and athletic market to build brand credibility and thought leadership and moving into mainstream health and wellness in 2021.
