Andrea R. Coravos

Hi, I’m Andy. I build, write, and research at the edge of science, philosophy, and the mind.

I co-founded HumanFirst, where I served as CEO for 7 years, unlocking better research for all humans, sooner. In 2024, we sold the company to ICON (NASDAQ: ICLR), launching the Atlas platform. I am now taking a sabbatical.

I like finding things that make life better, and then scaling them so more people have access. Software and science are often the mechanism, but not always.

What’s getting my attention today

• 📈 M&A advisory // I’ve been advising portfolio companies for the past 10 years. After we completed HumanFirst’s public company transaction, I’ve been helping other founders navigate their M&A processes, focusing on lower to mid-market transactions (sub $250M) that boutique banks can’t or won’t do.
• 💸 Angel investing // I’ve made 60+ angel investments. Some of my public investments are listed on Crunchbase.
• 📝 Writing and Research // I’ll be publishing a few pieces on selling software to pharma and biotechs, public company M&A, investing in Broadway & film, and more.
• 👾 Tinkering // I’m a big fan of side quests during sabbatical. Been playing around with LLMs, learning music, and writing comics.

About

While on sabbatical, I split my time between Dublin, Ireland and Brooklyn, NY.

For the past 9 years, I’ve served on the Board of Directors of VisionSpring. Every year, we help hundreds of thousands of people get access to quality eye care.

Before HumanFirst, I served as an EIR at the FDA in the Digital Health Unit, and before that, a software engineer at Instacart and Akili Interactive, a leader in digital medicine and developer of the first FDA-cleared video game.

Before transitioning into engineering, I worked at KKR Capstone and McKinsey, where I focused on the healthcare, energy, and financial industries. Duke Grad. Birder. Co-founded CODE@HBS, the computer science and engineering organization at Harvard Business School.

My all-time favorite podcast is John O’Donohue and Krista Tippett’s conversation on The Inner Landscape of Beauty.

Past Orgs and Projects

• Founding team at Ummo, a personalized speech coach. Public speaking is hard, Ummo makes it easier. Showcased by the Apple App Store as The Top 3 “Apps We Love” in Spring 2016.
• Former advisor to the Biohacking Village at DEFCON, and a proud supporter of WeHeartHackers.org, a collaborative movement between the medical device and security researcher communities

Working Together

Want to learn more about collaborating with me? Check out my User Guide.

Writing

I occasionally write at blog.andreacoravos.com and peer-reviewed manuscripts are on Google Scholar. Also in these publications:

• Astera Institute: The Early Stage Go-To-Market Handbook: Selling software to pharma and biotech companies, 2025.
• The Neurotech Compendium: Reflections from the Frontier, 2017-25.
• HumanFirst Blog: Biometric remote patient monitoring: what most people aren’t talking about (yet), 2022.
• Nature npj ‘Behind the Paper’: Using connected sensor technologies to measure health at home, 2020.
• Quartz: Treating algorithms like prescription drugs could reduce AI bias, 2019.
• WIRED: Digital Medicine: The doctor prescribes video games and virtual reality rehab, 2018.
• STAT News: Blockchains for biomedicine and health care are coming. Buyer: be informed, 2018.
• STAT News: Blockchains and health care: promising and moving quickly, though no silver bullet, 2017.
• Harvard Business School Digital Initiative: Software-Enabled Clinical Trials, 2017.
• DEFCON Biohacking Village: The Rise of Software as Medicine: Swapping out Pills for Apps, Algorithms, and Signals, 2017.
• NeuroTechX: You can (literally) turn on the lights using your mind— Matilda is not science fiction anymore, 2017.
• NeuroTechX: Can stimulating your nervous system reverse Parkinson’s, reduce depressive episodes, and help you learn the piano? 2017.
• NeuroTechX: The BRAIN Initiative: The race to understand the human brain, 2017.
• Internet Security 101: A starter guide to avoid being an idiot online, 2016.
• The Harbus: Coding is the New Business Literacy, 2016 in the Huffington Post.
• The Harbus: Who Said Harvard MBAs Don’t Code? 2017.
• HBS MBA Voices: Interning As A Software Engineer While At Harvard Business School, 2016.
• HBS MBA Voices: Meet the CODE Club, 2015.

Peer-Reviewed Publications

• Nature npj Digital Medicine: An aligned framework of actively collected and passively monitored clinical outcome assessments (COAs) for measure selection, 2024.
• The Lancet Digital Health:Remote digital health technologies for improving the care of people with respiratory disorders, 2024.
• Nature npj Digital Medicine: Building resilient medical technology supply chains with a software bill of materials, 2021.
• Nature npj Digital Medicine: Verification, analytical validation, and clinical validation (V3): the foundation of determining fit-for-purpose for Biometric Monitoring Technologies (BioMeTs), 2020.
• Nature npj Digital Medicine: Modernizing and designing evaluation frameworks for connected sensor technologies in medicine, 2020.
• Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR): Connected Medical Technology and Cybersecurity Informed Consent: A New Paradigm, 2019.
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics: Decentralized Trials in the Age of Real‐World Evidence and Inclusivity in Clinical Investigations, 2019.
• Karger Digital Biomarkers: Digital Medicine: A Primer on Measurement, 2019.
• Nature npj Digital Medicine: A systematic review of feasibility studies promoting the use of mobile technologies in clinical research, 2019.
• Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR): The Case for a Hippocratic Oath for Connected Medical Devices: Viewpoint, 2019.
• Nature npj Digital Medicine: Developing and adopting safe and effective digital biomarkers to improve patient outcomes, 2019.
• Duke Journal of Economics: Measuring the Likelihood of Small Business Loan Default: Community Development Institutions and the Use of Credit-Scoring to Minimize Default Risk, 2010.
• Duke Journal of Economics: Female Surname Choice: Historical, Cultural, and Branding Influences at Duke University, 2010.
• Journal of South Asian Development: Book Review // Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day, 2010.

Books

• Fast Facts: Digital Medicine - Measurement, 2020. Available on Amazon Kindle free of charge.

Classes & Podcasts

• Vital Signs: Ep 21: Andy Coravos and Ashoka Rajendra on Hyperspecialization in Pharma R&D and Digital Biomarkers, 2023.
• a16z Podcast: Taking the Pulse on Medical Device Security, 2020.
• Flux: Episode 26: Andy Coravos — A Brave New World of Digital Medicine, 2020.
• Venture Stories: The State of Biohacking in 2020 with Andy Coravos, Nina Alli, and Beau Woods, 2020.
• MIT Open Courses: Machine Learning For Healthcare: Lecture 22 - Regulation of ML/AI in the US, 2019.
• Stacey on IoT: Episode 211: Andy Coravos, 2019.
• Tech Tonics: Andy Coravos: Championing Responsible Digital Medicine, 2019.

Mentions

• STAT News: Icon acquires HumanFirst to boost support for digital tools in clinical trials, 2024.
• Forbes: Joy Is Next Frontier Of Precision Medicine, 2023.
• Forbes: Massive Digital Library Released To Accelerate Clinical Research And Cut Costs, 2022.
• Entrepreneur: 100 Women of Influence in 2022.
• Fierce Healthcare and Fierce Medtech’s 17 rising stars in health tech, 2022.
• The Economist: Wearable devices measure a growing array of health indicators. They can detect a disease before it develops, 2022.
• Forbes: The Future Of Medicine: Fighting Deadly Diseases With Smart Devices And Digital Biomarkers, 2022.
• FierceBiotech: Duke, HumanFirst launch center to ensure digital health tools are up to snuff for clinical trials, 2021.
• WSJ: HumanFirst Raises $12 Million, 2021.
• Stacey on IoT: Now is the time to build a connected medical device framework, 2020.
• Forbes: Digital Medicine: Digital Health, Plus Evidence, Plus Humility, 2019.
• TechCrunch: No one knows how effective digital therapies are, but a new tool from Elektra Labs aims to change that, 2019.
• Business Insider: Elektra Labs launched an online catalog for evaluating digital health monitoring tools, 2019.
• MobiHealthNews: Elektra Labs launches connected health tech catalogue alongside $2.9M in seed funding, 2019.
• Politico: A Social Contract For Patient Data, 2019.
• Newsweek: Personalized Health Care and Artificial Intelligence Could Improve Your Life—at the Cost of Your Privacy, 2019.
• Rock Health: Want to create meaningful change in the US healthcare system? Serve a “tour of duty” in the government, 2019.
• WIRED: Inside the group fighting to purge sexism from Europe’s VCs, 2019.
• Edmund Hillary Fellowship: EHF Fellow: Andy Coravos of Elektra Labs, 2018.
• Institutional Investor: Venture Capital Has a ‘MeToo’ Problem. Have Investors Been Ignoring It?, 2018.
• VCGC: Andy Coravos - Founder @ Elektra Labs, 2017.
• Harvard Business School: Three Graduating Students Named Recipients of Dean’s Award for Service to School and Society, 2017.
• Instacart Tech Blog: Our First Engineering Intern, 2016.
• New York Times: Getting Over Stage Fright With the Help of Your Smartphone, 2016.
• LifeHacker: Ummo for iPhone Analyzes Your Speech to Help Improve Your Public Speaking, 2016.
• Inc: 6 Apps That Will Turn You Into an Expert Public Speaker, 2016.
• Business Insider: These 5 Harvard Business School students built an app to help you sound more confident when you speak, 2016.
• USA Today: Two new iOS apps aim to replace an expensive in-person speech coach, 2016.
• BostInno: Startup Lockdown is a Spring Break Student Accelerator, 2016.
• VentureFizz HBS Students Give Up Spring Break to Lock in Startup Concepts, 2016.

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