Axial partners with great founders and inventors. We invest in early-stage life sciences companies such as Appia Bio, Seranova Bio, Delix Therapeutics, Simcha Therapeutics, among others often when they are no more than an idea. We are fanatical about helping the rare inventor who is compelled to build their own enduring business. If you or someone you know has a great idea or company in life sciences, Axial would be excited to get to know you and possibly invest in your vision and company . We are excited to be in business with you - email us at info@axialvc.com
Who leads Cricket?
Cricket Health was founded in 2015 by Arvind Rajan (CEO; former LinkedIn executive), Brian Guarraci (CTO; was an engineer at LinkedIn), James Chaukos (also worked at LinkedIn), and Vince Kim (was a partner at Aberdare Ventures) to develop software and services for kidney care. Arvinda is now executive chairman with Bobby Sepucha, former SVP at Fresenius Medical Care, as CEO of Cricket.
What does Cricket do?
Cricket builds software and services to support their chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients. Cricket works with payors and providers to identify patients that might be at high-risk for kidney failure and get paid for improving the latter’s outcomes. On the other side, Cricket works with these patients through their nephrology clinics in combination with their remote and at-home care teams. Cricket offers dialysis care (home or in-center), education, 24/7 support, conservative care, medicine, transplant support, and diet recommendations to help CKD/ESRD patients. Beyond the nephrology care, Cricket’s two main product advantages are:
Software and data analysis toolkit that relies on EHRs to identify high-risk CKD patient
Health Options Patient Education (HOPE) is Cricket’s education product to help CKD patients understand what options they have and create a game plan to prepare for their disease to go into ESRD
Cricket’s business model and how the company generates sales incentivize it to slow the progression of kidney disease: extend the timeline until a transplant is required and keep these patients out of the hospital.
What makes Cricket unique?
Cricket is building integrated care for kidney patients to keep them out of the hospital. In kidney disease, catching a patient earlier and providing treatment extends the time from the patient developing ESRD and requiring a transplant. Most ESRD patients end up on dialysis; as a result, many companies have grown large through funneling these patients into in-center dialysis.
Given this state-of-affairs for kidney disease patients, Cricket is building a unique product offering to delay ESRD and provide at-home dialysis is needed. This goes against the offering patients have historically had and the incentives that have been in place for decades. With the shift to fee-for-value happening right now in the US healthcare system, Cricket and related companies can save the system $10Bs every year and keep patients out of hospitals by intervening earlier and providing at-home care.
Why I like what Cricket is doing?
CKD is the largest opportunity within kidney disease. Around 20M in the US have CKD (the number is probably larger with many CKD patients undiagnosed) with 500K of them having ESRD, which requires dialysis or a transplant. On a side note, new medicines are required to delay the onset of ESRD.
Cricket is building a product to realign the interests of the kidney disease patients with the incentives of care. Most patients’ only option is in-center dialysis, which takes up to 4 hours and has to be done every few days. Delivering home care to reduce this burden and catch patients earlier to delay the need for dialysis/transplant has the potential to transform patient lives and the $100B kidney care market. Cricket is helping improve kidney care and accelerating the shift to value-based care. Clover Health should buy Cricket.
You can find Cricket here.