PureTech Health plc (LON: PRTC), a clinical stage biotechnology company dedicated to discovering, developing and commercialising highly differentiated medicines for dysfunctions of the Brain-Immune-Gut (BIG) axis,has today noted that its affiliate Sonde Health has appointed healthcare technology leader David Liu as chief executive officer and a member of its board of directors. After over a decade pioneering novel online products with America Online (AOL), David has served in executive roles in growth-stage digital health and education enterprises targeting international markets, including Quartet, an enterprise technology healthcare company, and Knewton, a leading global education technology company.
Eric Elenko PhD, chief innovation officer at PureTech Health said:
“David’s experience guiding companies through significant growth positions him as a valuable addition to Sonde’s team as they pioneer a new approach to healthcare.”
The full text of the announcement from Sonde Health is as follows:
Sonde Health Appoints David Liu as CEO
Sonde Health Inc., a leading company developing a voice-based technology platform to measure health when a person speaks, today announced that David Liu has joined Sonde as chief executive officer and a member of its board of directors. This appointment follows the recently announced $16 million Series A financing directed to advance Sonde’s capability across multiple health conditions and device types as well as its commercialisation activities.
“Sonde Health’s vocal biomarker technology has the potential to fundamentally transform the way we monitor and manage our health and well-being. David’s wealth of experience at the intersection of healthcare and technology along with his significant executive and entrepreneurial experience position him perfectly to take Sonde to the next stage of growth,” said Edward Kliphuis, investment director at M Ventures and board director at Sonde Health. “The board and I are thrilled to have David lead and further strengthen Sonde and its talented team.”
“A new wave of technology powered by voice is upon us, and its application in healthcare has already begun to streamline functional tasks such as researching providers, scheduling appointments, and updating medical records,” said Mr Liu. “Sonde is at the forefront of taking voice technology beyond those tasks to potentially improve people’s health outcomes by analysing vocal biomarkers combined with machine learning. I’m excited to join Sonde and work with Jim Harper, our co-founder and COO, as we continue to progress our platform as a fast, reliable, and non-invasive health check built into widely used smartphone, voice assisted, and telemedicine technologies.”
Sonde’s vocal biomarker platform has demonstrated the potential to effectively detect disease using information obtained from an individual’s voice on commonly-owned devices, such as smartphones and smart speakers, and it has the potential to fundamentally change the way mental and physical health is screened and monitored.
Mr Liu brings a wide range of leadership experiences across consumer internet, education technology, and digital healthcare to his role. He most recently served as president and chief operating officer at Quartet, a growth stage enterprise healthcare technology company that connects primary care physicians with mental health providers to improve overall health outcomes for patients and generate significant savings for payors. Before Quartet, Mr Liu was president and chief operating officer at Knewton, where – from an early stage – he helped to build a leading global education technology company that uses artificial intelligence to personalise digital learning materials for K-20 students to improve individual learning outcomes. Mr Liu began his technology career with a decade at AOL Inc., where he successfully led multiple product areas and launched the original AOL.com portal as an internal start-up.
Mr Liu recently served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM), where he evaluated developing technologies in therapeutics, diagnostics, devices and digital healthcare.
