Once a consumer health unicorn, Forward leveraged AI and advanced diagnostics to offer members personalized, preventive health plans.
After raising hundreds of millions in support of its mission to improve healthcare using AI and advanced digital technologies, US startup Forward has closed its doors. No reason was given for the closure, with the company reporting that its locations, scheduled visits and mobile application were shutting down, “effective immediately”. According to reports, all 200 Forward employees will lose their jobs, although members will still be able to access their “medical team” until mid-December.
Founded in 2016 by Google’s former head of special projects Adrian Aoun, Forward was initially focused on changing the primary care to a more prevention-focused and technology-enabled model. The company raised more than $500 million in total and was said to be valued at more than $1 billion in 2021.
Last year, Forward announced another $100 million in funding and perhaps its most ambitious plan yet: the introduction of CarePods – billed as “the world’s first AI doctor’s office.” The AI-powered, self-service pods offered members personalized health plans and advanced diagnostics spanning disease detection, biometric body scans, blood testing, and more, for as little as $99 a month.
In a post on LinkedIn, Max Marchione, co-founder of digital longevity medicine startup Superpower, suggested several potential reasons for Forward’s demise, but ended on a positive note.
“What Adrian and the team tried to do should be lauded as an attempt at the near impossible — fixing healthcare,” he said. “It’s easy for those outside the arena to critique. But really, this is a what it takes to dare to do something great. The lesson here should not be to cut down innovators. Instead, it should be to learn from the past and stand on the shoulders of giants.”
Dr Danish Nagda, founder and CEO of technology enabled healthcare provider Rezilient was more critical, suggesting that patients rejected Forward’s mission to replace doctors and nurses with hardware and software.
“Their fatal error was in the fundamental assumption behind their business model: that people could be taken out of the equation in healthcare,” he said.
NHS cancer doctor and healthtech expert Dr Derrick Khor also weighed in on the news, suggesting that Forward’s primary focus on trying to change the primary care model in the US was likely its biggest challenge.
“I see the loss of Forward as a loss for the healthcare community,” he added. “Mainly because we need serious innovation in primary care. But it really begs the question, ‘Are our patients and clinicians ready for significant disruption/innovation in clinical care?’ Or are we as society more engrained into our traditional model of healthcare, however inefficient it may be? For now, it seems like the world is not quite ready yet for ‘Doctor in a Box’.”
