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Meg welcomes Eliza Sternlicht, Co-Founder and COO of MediCircle, a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical redistribution startup.
Show Notes
Meg welcomes Eliza Sternlicht, Co-Founder and COO of MediCircle, a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical redistribution startup.
Eliza Sternlicht is not only a startup co-founder with a rich history of working to solve medical issues and disparities, she’s a senior in college at Brown University. At such a young age, Eliza already has an enviable resume full of noble causes tackled.
Her most recent project is MediCircle, a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical redistributor. They connect unused, unexpired oral cancer medications with charitable clinics where patients can receive them, free of charge.
On today’s show, Meg and Eliza discuss Eliza's history of working to solve medical issues and disparities over the course of both her high school and college years; how she and co-founder, Jack Schaeffer, discovered the issue of unused, wasted cancer medication which led to the founding of MediCircle; Danny Worshay's class and book, "See, Solve, Scale," and how it informed MediCircle’s inception; Eliza's rich and varied family endeavors; her advice for young startups; and much more.
Further Reading:
Episode Credits:
The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare is a production of The Krinsky Company.
Hosted by Meg Escobosa.
Edited, engineered, and mixed by Calvin Marty.
Theme music composed and performed by Calvin Marty.
©2022 The Krinsky Company
Creators & Guests
Host
Meg Escobosa
Meg Escobosa has 15 years of innovation consulting experience, focusing on the unique challenges of healthcare since 2012. For The Krinsky Company, Meg leads client engagements overseeing advisory board design, creation and management. She also leads industry research, expert recruitment and trend analysis to support corporate innovation initiatives centered on the future of healthcare. Her background in innovation and strategy consulting began at IdeaScope Associates where she was involved all aspects of strategic innovation initiatives including understanding the voice of the customer, industry research and aligning the executive team to invest in promising strategic growth opportunities. Meg received her BA in Latin American Studies from Trinity College in Hartford and her MBA in sustainable management from the pioneering Master’s degree program, Presidio Graduate School. She is also on the board of a non-profit foundation focused on researching and developing technology to support a sustainable society. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two teenage daughters.
Producer
Calvin Marty
A man of many hats, Calvin Marty is a Podcast Producer, Editor, Engineer, Voice Actor, Actor, Composer, Singer/Songwriter, Musician, and Tennis Enthusiast. Calvin produces, engineers, edits, mixes, and scores The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare. Calvin is also the creator of the 2020 podcast, irRegular People, among others. Find his music under the names Calvin Marty, Billy Dubbs, Nature Show, and The Sunken Ship. Over his long career as an actor, Calvin's has voiced many Radio and TV commercials for a wide-range of companies and products and has appeared in small on-camera roles on shows such as Chicago Fire and Empire.
What is The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare?
The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare is a podcast featuring exceptional women making an impact in healthcare today. We celebrate our guests’ accomplishments, setbacks, and the lessons they've learned throughout their careers. We dig into the many healthcare issues we face today and how these innovative leaders are working to solve them. Join host Meg Escobosa in conversation with some of the many brilliant, courageous women on the front lines of the future of health.
Eliza Sternlicht: We talked to a patient: She showed us pictures of her grandkids and her life story. And then a timer went off and it was time for her to take her medications. We saw her reach for a prescription of Lynparza, which is a cancer medication, take out a pill, cut it in half, and tell us that she couldn't take the full pill because she was gonna run out of medications and she couldn't pick up her next pack of medications because of how high the copay was.
46% of cancer patients are reducing spending on food and clothing to be able to afford their prescriptions. It's about 42% of patients that don't take their medications as prescribed, due to cost. This is making their diseases worse. This is worsening health outcomes. It's a really serious problem.
Meg Escobosa: Welcome to The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare, a podcast featuring exceptional women making an impact in healthcare today. We celebrate our guests’ accomplishments, setbacks and the lessons they've learned throughout their careers. We dig into the many healthcare issues we face today and how these innovative leaders are working to solve them.
I'm Meg Escobosa. Join me in conversation with some of the many brilliant, courageous women on the front lines of the future of health.
—
Hello everyone! Today we're very fortunate to be speaking with Eliza Sternlicht, who's a senior at Brown University and a co-founder of MediCircle. Welcome Eliza. Thanks so much for making the time to be with us.
Eliza Sternlicht: Yeah, thank you so much for having me here.
Meg Escobosa: Okay, so you are a senior in college. That's incredible that you are starting your business. Can you just tell us about how this came to be? How is it possible that a senior in college is starting a new business?
Eliza Sternlicht: (laughs) Yeah. Happy to talk about that. So for some context, I studied biomedical engineering and I have past experience working with medical devices that are intended to address disparities, whether that's working on a laryngoscope that we currently are working to file a patent on; some gynecological devices, different intravenous, you know, technologies, all of that stuff.
I was working at Tufts medical center right before the pandemic started on a separate device for anesthesia delivery. And I had sent out a survey to about 114 different anesthesiologists, and I was shocked that over 50% responded with the fact that they wanted to update their waste management practices.
So when I saw a need like this that was so pressing, I just wanted to investigate the problem more. And I was really curious: if it's so prevalent in one field of medicine, is it also in other verticals? So I contacted my friend, who we worked together on a previous venture before for our college. And we started calling other hospitals and saying, “Hey, do you guys also have a problem in your waste management practices?”
And what we were finding was that hospitals in the operating rooms would open a tray of anesthetics, they’d use one or two of the medications, and then they'd throw the rest away. And for some of these places, they had the resources to be able to re-sterilize them. But a lot of them were just throwing them out.
So we saw that it was in hospitals, obviously hospitals aren't the only place where care is being delivered, though. So we were thinking of different places where there was integrated care and one that came to mind was nursing homes. So then we just started driving around to nursing homes all around Rhode Island. Back before COVID and they had open doors.
So we started there by talking to the patients. I feel like when we were doing that initial research on the more hospital basis, that’s what we were missing. So we'd talk to these patients and we'd hear these really heart-wrenching stories of cutting pills in half, of moving to nursing homes that were farther away from their families, of delaying refilling prescriptions in their entirety.
Because their prescriptions were so expensive and they didn't have the budget allocated to afford these medications.
Personally, I have a godmother who had passed of cancer because she couldn't keep up with her copays for chemotherapy.
So we saw this heartbreaking side of the problem. We knew that with anesthesia, there was a lot of medications wasted.
And then when we'd go to the backrooms of the pharmacies of these nursing homes and we'd see biomedical waste bins that were bigger than your average trash can, and they would just be filled to the brim with medications that would have like one or two pills popped out of these blister packs. And then the rest was just sealed and lying there.
And these medications were the very same ones that patients we spoke to couldn't afford.
So that's when we were like, we need to do something to connect these two sources and that's where MediCircle kind of had its inception.
Meg Escobosa: Okay. Wow. That is an incredible recognition of a need and a problem that is just so pervasive.
It's fascinating. I had no idea. When I think of hospital waste or medical waste, I think of things that can't be reused. I think of, you know, things that can harm me only. So that's actually really instructive to hear what you discovered. And I think it's brilliant that you were able to observe patients and individuals who have poor access to medicine or constraints. Can you describe a little bit more about how you decided to do that bottom-up research, shall we say, to uncover the need?
Eliza Sternlicht: Definitely. So my partner and co-founder Jack Schafer is a student studying applied mathematics and economics at Brown University.
And also very much so abides by Daniel Worshay’s emphasis on bottom-up and top-down research and starting at the bottom-up and finding a need. So for us, we took those lessons to heart. And in our first three months of operations and working on this, we conducted over 300 interviews.
Meg Escobosa: (laughs, impressed) That's a great accomplishment, 300!
How did you find all these people?
Eliza Sternlicht: A lot of cold-calling. And then when we talk to people, we'd always end every interview with–as Danny recommends–saying, “Hey, is there anybody else you recommend that we talk to in this space?” And we'd get five of their contacts and we'd say, “Hey, this person recommended that we speak to you.”
And from there there was kind of a network effect. And especially for us where we have a mission that's really dedicated towards serving patients, we found people are so responsive and especially with physicians, you know, they're seeing the need. So people have been very positive in their responses and helping us, which we really appreciate.
Meg Escobosa: We have worked with leaders of major corporations who are responsible for building new businesses. And I think it's easy to forget when you're at a large organization, how important the voice of the customer is. Or it's just harder to get at because you've got so many other things that you're worried about in terms of the resources that you're managing and the execution of delivering the solution you think you have. So tell us about what that was like to take the learnings from the conversations and brainstorm or come up with the idea that you ultimately came up with.
Eliza Sternlicht: Yeah. So that's a great question. For us, we are constantly iterating and improving on our model.
I think that's definitely one of the benefits of being a smaller startup is you have that flexibility to incorporate what you're learning from every interview and see: how can I improve this? How can I make it better for our customers, for the patients, for the healthcare system as a whole? And that's been really helpful for us. Where we started has taken many pivots from where we are today.
For example, when we were first starting, we thought maybe we just focus on bulk redistribution. And that lasted for all of a day. And then we talked to an oncologist who became one of our advisors who was talking about the medications that he was prescribing and how each of them cost on average, about $11,000.
And we saw that you're wasting one of those packs and that's just so much money that's going down the drain. So at the same time, what we were seeing is that cancer has one of the highest treatment adjustments. So for cancer patients, it's about 41%, I believe, that have unfinished prescriptions. And what that generates is about $6 billion of unused oral oncology medication that's being wasted every year.
So when you couple that with the fact that 63% of cancer patients aren't able to afford their treatment and are reporting some financial burden, that's where we really decided to focus on that. And then from there it's been, how do we safely connect these two sources. So we've really focused on refining our recertification processes and building out our technology for that.
Meg Escobosa: After it is recertified, what is your process next day to find the right next customer? Is there a sales channel? Do you have a sales organization or how does that work?
Eliza Sternlicht: Yes. So MediCircle is an online pharmacy. So we are sending medications that are going directly to the patient's home. And we can do that by operating just like any other pharmacy where if you're a physician and you're using an electronic health record, like Epic, for example, we can integrate into that drop down menu.
So you can just send your medications directly to us, and then we can fulfill them.
Meg Escobosa: Wow. Do you have funding at this point?
Eliza Sternlicht: Yes. We raised a $1.2 million pre-seed round.
Meg Escobosa: Congratulations.
Eliza Sternlicht:Thank you.
Meg Escobosa: And so have you opened for business?
Eliza Sternlicht: So, not yet. We've moved over the counter medications. We've built our technology and we've assembled a team.
Pharmaceutical redistribution is a really novel process and there's legislation in 40 states. And that doesn't mean that there's everything in place from an infrastructure level to have that actually become operational. So what we're looking at right now is obtaining our pharmacy licenses and making sure that we're ready to launch. And we have, we have everything prepared, we just need the legal go ahead.
Meg Escobosa: Where have you found the biggest pushback or resistance to your novel concept?
Eliza Sternlicht: It's interesting because–I feel like this is a bad answer, but everyone's really excited about the idea.
Meg Escobosa: That's not a bad answer. That's awesome. That's terrific.
Eliza Sternlicht: You know, we speak to insurance companies, manufacturers, PBMs, everyone we expect to kind of like poke holes in our ideas.
But, this is medication that's being wasted. It's draining, you know, American taxpayer dollars. And at the same time, you're seeing medications that aren't being able to be purchased by patients because they're so expensive. And I think anybody can recognize that when you're seeing this much waste in the problem, when there's such a problem with affordability that connecting the sources makes sense.
And we've honestly had a lot of support and interest and partnership from these larger organizations because they see the “for good” aspect of it.
It's also, we're working with people that, you know, conventionally wouldn't be able to get these medications. So it's not necessarily a drain from the pharmaceutical industry, it's medication that aren't being sent.
Meg Escobosa: Yeah. And, um, I know that there is the Digital Divide that we deal with every day. There's a group of Americans who do not have access to digital resources: web, internet, phones, what have you–and yet those are probably the audience that you want to address in terms of providing medication at a very fair price or free. Is it free?
Eliza Sternlicht: So we charge a standard $20 flat rate fee, regardless of how much the medication originally cost and we just need to cover our recertification processes.
Meg Escobosa: Fantastic. That's beautiful. And so how do you overcome the Digital Divide or have you faced that issue yet? Are you thinking about it? And if so, what are you thinking about?
Eliza Sternlicht: So that is on the forefront of our mind in every aspect for us. That's on our website making sure we have options to increase the font size; we're working on potentially getting something that can also play it in audio instead for patients who might not be able to see; making sure it's in every language. It's something that we consider.
Regarding the technology divide our current plan is to work with the oncologists and the doctors to make sure that the patients know that we are a resource. And then from there, once a prescription has been sent to our pharmacy, we're calling the patients. We're making sure that they're being contacted, especially for those patients where they won't have access to computers.
Because we don't want to create any additional complications in, you know, disruptions and flow and everything like that. The easier the process can be for the patients the better. That's why one of the reasons, you know, we have pharmacists on call is just to make sure that our patients' needs are being taken care.
[music]
Meg Escobosa: Can we back up just a little bit. Eliza, where are you from? Where did you grow up? Tell us a little bit about your family.
Eliza Sternlicht: Yeah, happy to. (laughs) I am originally from Chestnut Hill. Our family has moved…how many times now? Like between eight and 11 times around the greater boston area.
Meg Escobosa: Oh my God. Okay.
Eliza Sternlicht: (laughs) That's why it's an interesting question.
I'm from Massachusetts. Um, (laughs) like a specific town would be hard to name. I just feel like we've kind of navigated so much of the different aspects of the greater Boston area.
I went to high school at Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire. It’s a boarding school. My Mom works in finance. And despite the fact that I now work in business, I still don't exactly understand what she does in finance and my dad’s an anesthesiologist.
My sister works at Forbes as a journalist. So you’d think that I would have a better understanding of how to do a podcast. (laughs)
Eliza Sternlicht: And my brother is a professional video gamer.
Meg Escobosa: Of course. Oh, like truly professional or just a wink wink? No, really he's getting paid for it?
Eliza Sternlicht: Professional, yes. Like that is [his job].
Meg Escobosa: (laughs) Okay. That's incredible. Modern family you have. What I appreciate…So when you went into Brown, what were you thinking that you might study?
Eliza Sternlicht: I went into Brown University knowing that I wanted to study Biomedical Engineering. In high school, I had a best friend who had a below-the-knee amputation and he talked to me about how he couldn't afford his prosthetics. And at the time I was like, there's no way that in this age of technology, people should go without something as integral as a limb.
So I got into investigating that problem and I started creating CAD models of prosthetics and then 3D printing them and finding clients that would need them who couldn't afford them and sending them out to them. So I thought the whole process of not just seeing a problem, but actually acting on it was really cool.
And that's what drew me to Biomedical Engineering. I originally knew I wanted to do something with medicine. I've been very interested in all things STEM since I was a very small child. And yeah, so it was, I was originally pre-med and I studied biomedical engineering.
I spent the first year working on MediCircle thinking I was still going to go to med school. I even took the MCAT, which I laugh about now because that’s just (laughs) seen as a test number that I got, but you know, the reasons why I wanted to go into medicine was that I wanted to help patients. And I thought that there was one way that I could do that. There's one way to help people. And it was by being a doctor.
And the more I worked on MediCircle, the more I realized: wait, here's an opportunity where I can still help patients, but at a much larger scale and that’s really what pulled me to work on this full-time, you know, seeing the potential of impacting millions of lives. It's very alluring.
Meg Escobosa: Yeah, and yet it's not necessarily biomedical or, you know, it's not “engineering” per se, but it is absolutely making a huge impact in the industry and, and for patients.
So congratulations on finding something that fits so well with your areas of interest and your passion. And I love what you share just about seeing your friends struggling and your instinct–and maybe it's just a personal drive the way you think–how can I make this better? What can I do? And how cool that you were at a school or a place that had resources like a 3D printing machine available? Is that something that you guys have–a tinker lab or something like that–at your high school that you got to play with?
Eliza Sternlicht: Yeah, we had a 3D printer at my high school. And then I also applied for a few different grants to be able to fund it.
Meg Escobosa: Wow: pulling resources, finding ways to do things, that's really creative.
And I really admire that clarity of purpose and drive to get it done. So that's very inspirational.
How did you choose your co-founder and how many co-founders do you have? Tell us about who they are and what you were thinking when you were looking for co-founder.
Eliza Sternlicht: So Jack and I met freshman year of college during the freshman orientation and immediately we had a great connection.
He worked on several companies in high school, including founding a successful nonprofit. And I was just really drawn to this person who had such a similar passion for helping people as I did. Interestingly enough, we also work together on a project called Bear Dens, which has since been integrated by the university.
So what we did was we compiled a lot of the residential housing data onto one platform because previously the housing lottery was very chaotic.
So we knew we worked together well as a team.
And when I found the problem at Tufts medical center, I thought, if I'm going to go into this and try and make it into a solution, I need the help of someone who knows a lot more about business, a lot more about finance, and a lot more about how to take an idea and turn it into a company.
That's why I contacted Jack. And I was like, “Hey, I think, I think I found something here.”
And so it's just the two of us. We have 11 employees. So we're mainly employing pharmacists and software engineers right now.
Meg Escobosa: Yeah, I can see. And so I know that there is a very popular course at Brown focused on entrepreneurship taught by Danny Worshay. He published a book called “See, Solve, Scale” that describes really fundamental and very…what's great about the book is that it is: no jargon. He knows that he is teaching undergraduate students who are liberal arts students.
They may or may not have any business experience, may not know finance, may not know a lot of things about the fundamentals. However, they can certainly come up with business ideas.
So did Jack share any of those takeaways or was he always just the one sort of helping to refine your approach to coming up with the business idea?
Or how much did you get exposure to this process?
Eliza Sternlicht: I feel like I've taken the class at this point. (laughs)
Meg Escobosa: (laughs) Yeah.
Eliza Sternlicht: To show how much that Jack abides by it, I can honestly pull any of our slide decks up. When we're presenting about different ways about, you know, teaching smaller and younger companies, how to go about this, he includes “See, Solve, Scale” in every single power point.
(both laugh)
He loves all of the different insights Danny has provided, and they've been instrumental to our growth. We definitely would not be here without the insights that he's been able to provide. You know, I talked about that Jack has started previous companies and yeah, he has started about like 15, and I think one of the big differences was learning from Danny: what we need to be doing, how we need to be approaching these problems as they emerge.
Meg Escobosa: What are some of the most important lessons you've learned so far in starting this business?
Eliza Sternlicht: I would say one of the most important things for business is to not shy away from failure.
I think that you are going to get a resounding number of “Nos” If you're onto anything, that's worth your time. Taking those, taking every failure, learning from it–that's what makes the difference. Because really that's an opportunity to try and perfect your product market fit, to adjust your model, to address the needs you're hearing.
We would much rather receive, you know, a meeting with someone where they just criticize our model, rip apart different parts of our business, because then we know, you know, what do we need to improve upon versus if we’re getting like a very nice, like, “Yeah, this is great!”
And I definitely think that it has a little bit of a learning curve to just be comfortable with like hearing “Nos,” (laughs) but really important.
So I definitely think that persistence, working hard, really committing yourself fully to what you're doing. As well as, for that, finding a mission that you believe in. When you’re working on a business–at least for us, you know, we're working sometimes 24 hours a day and you have the energy for that because you love what you do.
You’re full-heartedly in the mission and you're willing to dedicate all of your time to it. You're willing to deal with the stresses that come with that, just because, you know, at the end of the day, that what you're doing is making a difference in the way that you want to see the world change.
Meg Escobosa: Yeah. I'm curious, you know, when did you realize that you were onto something that really had possibilities?
Eliza Sternlicht: I think it wasn't until we started visiting the nursing homes that we realized that we were on to a much larger problem. Because like I had mentioned when you're seeing it in the hospitals, you're just seeing one side of the problem.
We talked to a patient, we can call her Loretta for confidentiality reasons.
She showed us pictures of her grandkids and told us all about, you know, her life story. And then a timer went off and it was time for her to take her medications. We saw her reach for a prescription of Lynparza, which is a cancer medication, take out a pill, cut it in half and tell us that she couldn't take the full pill because she was going to run out of medications and she couldn't pick up her next pack of medications because of how high the co-pay was.
And that's a really dangerous practice. You're not receiving the amount of medications that your doctor is prescribing. You're dealing with a disease as deadly as cancer. You can't be deviating from your treatment. And unfortunately, because cost is such a problem, cancer patients are making these terrible decisions that they don't want to make because they have no other option.
So for us, when we were watching that process and when we were learning that other patients were doing. It was really clear that we needed to do something to address this problem.
Meg Escobosa: We recently had on a Dr. Sabine Lynn as a oncology researcher. She shared–I did not realize this–I've been in healthcare for many years. I have lost people to cancer. I know the issue.
And I didn't realize that cancer is “like bacteria.” And so like, anti-microbial resistance is a huge issue. So I think similarly, if you only take part of your medication for cancer, you're only making the cancer stronger, actually in the long run. They're adapting to the medication.
They get just enough to learn how this medication behaves.
I'm sure I'm oversimplifying it. So the medical folks listening are, you know, cringing, but it's probably on that scale.
This poor woman is merely strengthening her cancer, potentially if she's only taking half of her medication. So it's really devastating.
Eliza Sternlicht: Honestly, it's so heartbreaking. We're hearing statistics and learning that 46% of cancer patients are reducing spending on food and clothing to be able to afford their prescriptions. And it's about 42% of patients that don't take their medications as prescribed due to cost. So, like you're talking about, this is making their diseases worse.
This is worsening health outcomes. It's a really serious problem.
[music]
Meg Escobosa: I'm curious if you could share some of the critique or kind of pivots that you've had to make, maybe a big pivot, you know, something that you had hoped to be able to do, and it didn't work out.
Eliza Sternlicht: One of the big pivots for us was we were originally targeting cancer medications that were being distributed in nursing homes.
And that's, what's known as medications being redistributed within a closed system. For us, a big pivot was switching over to open systems. So that's where medication is being prescribed through an outpatient pharmacy in a hospital. And for that, that's just such a larger range of patients that we can include.
That's been really important for us. It has resulted in us needing to make a more rigorous recertification process because these are medications that have left a healthcare facility. But that's been a really important pivot for us. And one that our partners are really excited about.
Meg Escobosa: Where did the pressure come from to make the pivot?
Was it the business model aspect, or was it a partner? What helped you to recognize that you needed to make the pivot?
Eliza Sternlicht: So, quite honestly, it was, we were researching the different demographics of the patients that we'd be working with. And we just saw that there were so many more in hospitals that were receiving their care in an outpatient facility versus the nursing homes.
And when we're talking about “See, Solve, Scale,” we want to make sure that we're addressing a problem that has a lot of need, and that has a large market size.
So to be able to capture the full market of unused medications: that's why we wanted to switch over to a larger demographic.
Meg Escobosa: That makes total sense. And I think that's a really interesting part of the guidance for the entrepreneur class, just that not only are you identifying a problem to solve and you are developing a solution to address it, but “are you making an impact?”
Are you thinking about addressing it on the largest possible scale to make an impact and drive change? So that seems like a very logical, understandable–certainly from a business principles perspective–to generate revenue to grow and to really address a problem.
Eliza Sternlicht: Yeah, I definitely think this was also learned in Danny Worshay’s class.
It's one of Jack's favorite lessons: you want to find… do you know the, um, “The Lake and The Well” story?
It's easier if you draw it out, but most people think you want to find a problem that is “a lake.” It's a problem that a lot of people have, and it doesn't matter that it's at a more superficial level.
But really what you want to do is you want to find those “wells.”
So it's a problem that a smaller population has, but it makes a huge difference and they can't live without the solution. So, you know, metaphorically “live.” In our case: literally. But usually it's a product that someone, you know, thinks changes their life. So for us, we found a “well,” we wanted to make sure that our well was still a sustainable model.
Meg Escobosa: That’s great. Okay…this is so random: I found myself thinking, like, what did your parents do raising your family? Thinking about your brother as a professional gamer, your sister in journalism and the accomplishments you've already made, this is just really a remarkable, highly-productive family you have. And I'm just curious, were there any lessons, like sort of “life rules” to live by or things that your parents taught you that helped you to be so clear about going after what you want?
Eliza Sternlicht: My parents have always been really supportive of us finding our passions and chasing after that. So I ended up kind of what I would call more conventionally in, you know, life's path than my siblings, especially my brother as a professional videogamer–he left a steady job to pursue that. And that's definitely something that I think a lot of parents would not recommend to their children.
(both laugh)
For myself, I have always been very ambitious and didn't like hearing “nos.” So like: for myself, when I was younger, I loved working with animals. I still do. So I, when I was 10 years old, emailed every animal shelter in the state of Massachusetts and I said, Hey, can I volunteer? Um, I'm 10, but I would love to work with animals and everyone was like, “No, you cannot. That's a liability issue.” (laughs)
(Meg laughs)
Uh, and then, uh, what, I think it was like the however many one finally said, “Yeah, sure. That's fine. Just have like your parents supervise.” And my parents were very supportive of that and that expanded to–I did a lot of international trips for working with wildlife there. They were supportive of that.
They, you know, I, I received a grant from the Coleman family when I was in high school to venture over to South Africa and work at some wildlife rehabilitation centers there. My parents were supportive and I really appreciated that because I don't think a lot of parents are always supportive of their kids going to foreign countries to work with animals that carry diseases. (laughs)
Meg Escobosa: Absolutely. If you're not comfortable with that. Yeah. I can see how it'd be like, “sorry.” And it's also an expense. It's a big expense to be able to send you there.
Eliza Sternlicht: Yeah. I was really fortunate to get the grant.
Meg Escobosa:Oh, yes. That’s very wise to recognize that there are ways to pay for things. So that's also an interesting problem solving mindset that you have.
That's like, oh, I'm not going to take no, I'm going to work around, I'm going to find a solution.
Who might be some other mentors that you've had that you can tell us a little bit about?
Eliza Sternlicht: I definitely have been really fortunate to have a lot of really great mentors.
For professors: my previous lab PI, Dr. Anita Shukla, has been an amazing inspiration, especially as a woman in STEM. Incredibly successful in her field, and one of the most well-spoken people that I know. And I have never seen someone give such a compelling presentation and such great feedback. So watching her navigate the field and coming to her for advice has always been really helpful.
I'm fortunate to also have her as an advisor for my major, for, you know, we have a lot of business mentors. Gazia Tala has been absolutely fantastic. He's one of the founders of Club Feast. He's been great to just kind of be someone that we can really just call, um, at any time and ask for his advice. We speak constantly with Richard Dale, Lee Newcomer, Dr. Rafiq L. Diery.
There's so many like that. I feel like I want to give them all a shout out because so many people have been so pivotal in our success.
We have also had a lot of support from Nancy Brinker, who was the previous founder of the Susan Komen foundation. Doug Olman, who was the previous CEO of Live Strong, who now is the CEO of Pelotonia has been helpful.
There's just been an endless list of people who have been really instrumental in helping us as we advance our business. And we definitely couldn't do it without the resources that Brown University has provided.
I would love to add: my grandfather has the biggest heart of anyone I know.
And he is an incredible inspiration for myself. In his career he's been very successful. He started a company that worked on glassware manufacturing and plastic manufacturing for pharmaceuticals. So, you know, healthcare runs deep in the family, I guess. (laughs)
Seeing him transition, you know, in the time that I've known him to a lot of different work in the nonprofit sector, whether that was working on breast cancer research or alzheimer's treatments and just seeing how deeply he cares about the people in his life and how he interacts with the rest of the world has been really inspirational and has made me–even more so–want to work in the space of helping others.
Meg Escobosa: Oh, that's so cool. That's very cool to hear. You guys are wisely taking advantage of the resources that you have earned in terms of, you know, getting a place at the university, pursuing the resources, you know, the opportunities that they have provided. And it's just a great example to other young people to see what is possible when you put your mind to something.
It's really quite compelling to hear what you guys have been up to. And I'm curious about your mentoring others. Do you have time for that? Is that something that you have any interest in? Who have you mentored?
Eliza Sternlicht: Yeah. So, we participate in a lot of different events. If there's ever any times that professors or student groups want us to speak at it, we're happy to talk.
We mentor a lot of the really young startups at Brown. Jack's been very involved with Dojo. Which is one of the entrepreneurial programs at Brown University. So we just gave a speech to them last week. So it's been great. I definitely think one of the reasons that businesses are able to succeed is because you have this chain of support.
So, mentorship is extremely important and we definitely prioritize–anytime anybody asks for advice on something–making sure that we're there to give them support. “Hey, here's how we address these issues,” because you know, people aren't facing novel problems all the time when they're starting a business; there's a lot that can be learned and being able to pass on those lessons is really important to us.
You're going to make a lot of mistakes. Um, and you can look back on it or you can take it–or…I know for a lot of people…you know, for us, MediCircle is our future. A lot of people will start a business and then exit, start another, and you take your lessons into your next one too.
So, yeah.
Meg Escobosa: Yeah. Speaking of your future, I'm curious if you can picture five years from now, 10 years from now: what do you see for yourself? Whether it includes MediCircle or other parts of your life…what do you envision for your future?
Eliza Sternlicht: I definitely think that my future is hopefully going to be defined by MediCircle.
I want to see us in all 50 states and in other verticals of specialty medications as well. And I think that having MediCircle as the leading pharmacy for distributing medications to patients who are having difficulty in affording–if we can, you know, take MediCircle to that level, then I will be with it for as long as it will let me be with it.
Meg Escobosa: Yeah, that's a beautiful vision. So Eliza, you guys are about to launch. That's so exciting. What can listeners do if they are interested in supporting your business, getting involved?
Eliza Sternlicht: We love interacting with the community. On our website we have the contact page. Definitely reach out to us, tell us why you're interested, what moved you about our story. On our website, you can also find pages to either donate or receive medications as well as to partner with MediCircle if you are affiliated with a healthcare company.
So I would recommend that listeners check out our website medicircle.org if they're interested in engaging with us more.
Meg Escobosa: Terrific. We're thrilled for you and can't wait to see you succeed. And of course, if there's anything we can do to support you, let us know. Thank you so much for your time for chatting with us and sharing your story and making an impact in a really, really significant and important way.
Eliza Sternlicht: Thank you so much. I really appreciate this.
Meg Escobosa: Thanks for joining us for The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare: a production of the Krinsky Company. Today's episode was produced by Calvin Marty, Chelsea Ho, Wendy Neilsen, and me, Meg Escobosa. This podcast is engineered, edited, mixed, and scored by Calvin Marty. If you enjoy the show, please consider leaving a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts. It really does make a difference. And share the show with your friends and colleagues.
If you have any questions, comments, or guest suggestions, please email me@megatthekrinskyco.com and you can visit us on thekrinskyco.com.