Function Health removes the barriers around extensive lab testing and empowers people to take control of their health outside the doctor's office, Mark Hyman, M.D., co-founder of Function, said.
Health tech companies focused on preventive medicine and longevity are gaining interest from investors as well as consumers willing to pay out-of-pocket for personalized health services.
Function Health, which has been in beta mode since April 2023, offers a membership-based platform that gives consumers access to more than 100 lab tests at a cost of $499 per year, or about $42 per month. The biomarker lab testing service includes heart, hormones, thyroid, nutrients, cancer signals, immunity, aging factors and autoimmunity, among other assessments.
The company claims its testing service comprises five times more lab testing than most primary care providers', which typically includes a rough average of 19 lab tests.
The startup now has nearly 50,000 paying members and a waitlist of more than 200,000 people. It also recently established a strategic partnership with fitness company Equinox, integrating its platform with a network of trainers to enhance the wellness experience.
Function removes the barriers around extensive lab testing and empowers people to take control of their health outside the doctor's office, Mark Hyman, M.D., co-founder of Function, told Fierce Healthcare in an interview.
"We've helped to get from reactive to proactive. It's reflecting a surging demand for health over healthcare," he said.
Hyman said Function is a personal health management platform that empowers people to be their own best health advocate. "It starts out with people getting 100-plus lab tests every year, twice a year, that are rarely run in a healthcare setting. It provides digestible, actionable insights based on the top knowledge experts and thousands of hours of research. It then tracks all the results in a centralized member app over time," he said.
Results are displayed in a dashboard, complete with a detailed summary from a clinician. The platform enables consumers to track their health over time and make proactive changes, according to the company.
The membership includes one yearly comprehensive assessment with 100-plus lab tests and a midyear check-in with 60 lab tests. The diagnostics include testing for 16 biomarkers related to heart health, seven thyroid biomarkers, four cancer detection biomarkers, 10 biomarkers for immune regulation, 11 biomarkers for female health and also 11 biomarkers for male health along with other biomarker testing for metabolic issues, stress and aging, liver, kidney, pancreas, blood, Alzheimer's disease, allergies, sexual health and biological age.
Hyman, founder of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, said the current healthcare system is "outdated and antiquated."
"People aren't empowered on their health, they're not taught how to do prevention. We have outdated processes and reverse financial incentives," he said.
People often only visit primary care doctors for routine annual checkups or on a reactive basis after experiencing symptoms.
He added, "I dream of a time when people be able to access what I call 'medical intelligence,' which is the notion that we should be able to access the world's best medical knowledge and not just rely on the one doctor, who is a good person, but has limited experience because he went to one medical school and had one residency and can only read so many papers and attend so many conferences. We can access all the world's wisdom from medical science and from knowledge experts, and it should all be in a tool that you can use and have easy access to that helps you to upgrade your life."
Function recently closed a series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Bio + Health with support from the a16z Cultural Leadership Fund.
The company did not disclose the size of the round, but Function has raised $53 million in total funding to date. Additional investors include Wisdom.vc, Draft Ventures, K5, G9 Ventures and 53 Stations along with a slew of celebrity backers including Matt Damon, Ari Emanuel (CEO of Endeavor), Kevin Hart, NBA player Joel Embiid's VC fund Embiid Ventures, Jay Shetty, former NBA player Blake Griffin, Zac Efron, former NFL player Colin Kaepernick, Pedro Pascal, Ara Katz (co-founder of Seed), Harvey Spevak (Equinox chairman), Harpreet Singh Rai (former CEO of Oura), Jeff Dean and Casey Means, M.D.
"As an athlete who has spent most of my life and career focused on optimizing my health and performance, I connected deeply with Function's vision for healthcare. Making personal health data widely accessible, affordable, and easy to understand is a game-changer for everyone to take a proactive approach to improving their health and preventing disease. I am thrilled to be part of the team's journey and support their mission," Griffin said in a statement.
Function plans to use the fresh capital to rapidly scale its technology, increasing access to whole-body testing. "The funding is going to be used to develop products. From an engineering point of view, we're going to work on improving the user experience to be able to scale and automate everything," Hyman said ."We're going to also build out the knowledge base and the content. We're going to create interfaces with EMRs (electronic medical records) and wearables."
In a LinkedIn post, Hyman gave examples of how Function's lab testing has already helped individuals take a more proactive approach to their health. He cited a 44-year-old father of two who discovered prostate cancer in stage 1 and a 51-year-old mother of four who discovered ovarian cancer just in time before she was symptomatic.
"Over 60% of our members have a nutrient deficiency. Over 30% of our members are showing autoimmunity signals," he wrote.
"We're at a historical juncture where technology and culture are converging to redefine our relationship with our own biology. This moment sets the stage for a future where the latest research and innovation seamlessly integrate into our lives in service of less suffering and more years. The possibilities are boundless. This is about health, not healthcare, happening outside traditional systems, yet supported by the world's top doctors and experts," said Function co-founder and CEO Jonathan Swerdlin in a statement.
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There are concerns in the medical community that membership-based, concierge medicine startups could potentially widen health disparities as there is a price barrier that makes the services only available to those who can afford to pay out-of-pocket. Most of these services are currently not covered by insurance.
"Not everybody is going to be able to afford this, but most people can afford $1.36 a day," Hyman replied. "What do people pay for subscription services, what do people pay for entertainment? What is the value of your health? If think that's where we need to increase understanding is that the more people invest now in their health, the more they're going to have a return on their investment in the long term. It can be could pay now or pay later. "
There are a number of consumer-focused diagnostic testing companies that offer personalized, at-home lab testing such as LetsGetChecked, Viome and Simple HealthKit.
Function Health joins a growing list of startups focused on prevention through lab tests or full-body scans. Prenuvo, a trendy startup that offers radiation-free, full-body MRI scans for early detection of cancer and other diseases, raised $70 million in series A equity and debt funding back in 2022. The scans cost about $2,500. Another company that is trying to take whole-body scans mainstream, Ezra, has raised $41 million, Forbes reported. Other companies in the space include Neko Health and SimonMed.
Many radiologists and physicians have raised concerns about the business models behind companies selling full-body MRI scans as a form of preventive medicine. There are risks associated with more screening tests, including increased costs to patients and the healthcare system, physicians caution.
Physicians debate whether MRI scans for patients who are asymptomatic are medically useful and raise concerns that it could led unnecessary procedures with a high rate of false positives.
Prenuvo, for its part, has launched a 10-year, 100,000-person clinical study to assess the diagnostic and clinical outcomes of whole-body MRI screening in the general population.
