Savvy specializes in connecting companies with real patients to gain the unique and necessary perspective on their health experiences. Simply put, Savvy is a marketplace for patient insights.

We started Savvy because we knew from our own experience, as chronic illness patients turned healthcare industry and academic professionals, that there had to be a better way for healthcare innovators to connect and work with the real experts — the patients. One that truly put patients first. So we founded Savvy Cooperative, the first of its kind patient-owned co-op that not only gives patients a platform to share their experiences with companies, but also gives them a vote in what we do and shares our profits with them (more on that here).

We spent the first half of our year talking to people like you, developing a prototype, and digging into what it meant to operate as a patient owned co-op. We announced Savvy to the world in May, and things took off from there.

The day after the announcement, we won Inspiring Capital’s Pitch For People Competition. We then went on to place 3rd in Health 2.0 — Pfizer’s Advancing Care For Metastatic Breast Cancer Challenge, winning $30,000. We also took home 3rd in Lyfebulb — Novo Nordisk’s Patient Entrepreneur Innovation Award,winning another $10,000.

Savvy was also accepted into MATTER, a healthcare incubator, as well as Entrepreneurship Lab NYC (ELabNYC), a bio and healthtech accelerator.

So far, Savvy has helped a variety of organizations gather patient insights, including startups, market researchers, pharma, non-profits, digital health, academics, as well as with incubators to support their portfolio companies (more on how we do it here).

As active patient advocates, we’ve also been attending patient conferences, industry conferences, scientific meetings, and FDA meetings. We’re out spreading the good word about the value of patient insights. We’ve also been attending conferences for social enterprises and co-ops. We probably had the good fortune of meeting you out at one of these events!

2018 promises to be an exciting year! We just revamped our site with a lot more info, clear ways to get involved, share, and of course, join the co-op.

Next week we’ll be out in SF for JP Morgan and later in January at the FDA’s Digital Health Workshop. We’ll also be speaking at the Patients As Partners conference and giving a panel discussion at SXSW on Platform Co-ops (our breed of co-op). If you’re at any of these events, do say hello!

We are finally getting our groove. And with your feedback and help (and reminders to eat, sleep, and take our meds), we’ll continue to improve your experience as we all work to improve the lives of patients and citizens of the earth!

And of course, feel free to drop us a line anytime. We’d love to work together to make sure the future of care is co-designed with patients. Because patients are Savvy.

In cooperation,

Jen Horonjeff, Founder | CEO
Ronnie Sharpe, Co-Founder | CSO

Visit us at savvy.coop

The above is a synthesis of the two letters we sent out: one to the patient community, the other to our industry and professional colleagues. Both contained the same information, but with messaging slightly modified in certain paragraphs. Why did we send out two separate letters? Because we understand user experience and wanting to communicate effectively to the different populations. But for those with FOMO, here it all is for your reading pleasure.