Meet Avegen’s expert team

Meet our founders

Two disciplines, two perspectives, one vision —
improving healthcare

Our efforts are powered by a global, multi-discipline team, but Avegen began
with two co-founders, where two halves made a whole.

As a former medic, Nayan Kalnad, saw firsthand how digital was going to transform a patient’s lived experience of their condition.
As a serial software entrepreneur, Neeraj Apte had the expertise required to harness technology to maximise its impact.

It was this core knowledge, empathy for the patient and belief that digital would shape the future of health that led to Avegen.

It still drives us today.

Learn more about life @Avegen

Meet Avegen’s leadership team

**Dr. Nayan Kalnad**, CEO has over 20 years of experience in healthcare.

Beginning his career as a practising medic, before transitioning into the world of pharma to work at the forefront of digital health. He understands the challenges facing today’s healthcare innovators from every angle.

He is motivated by the needs of the patient, can empathise with the challenges facing clinicians and is energised by how Avegen’s work impact lives. Nayan knows firsthand the challenges facing healthcare and firmly believes a platform approach is needed to maximise the impact of DHPs on health outcomes.

**Neeraj Apte,** CPO has amassed over 20 years of experience in software.

He brings the technical vision and expertise to Avegen. He has scaled our development, engineering and quality assurance teams into product builders who are focused on safety, efficiency and impact.

Having already built and exited his first entrepreneurial venture, Neeraj knows HealthMachine has to first serve its key stakeholder, the patient. He believes this patient-centric approach is the only way to create fast and sustainable improvements in user’s health and ensure Avegen’s clients improve the experience of living with the long term conditions they choose to target.

**Dr. Sumiti Saharan,** Business Unit Director – Maternal Health, is a Neuroscientist by training and has extensive experience designing outcome-driven DHPs from concept to scale.

She has built the research function at Avegen into a trusted collaborator that our clients rely upon to bring their innovation, ingenuity and impact to life through their products.

Sumi also leads the Together for Her team, spearheading their efforts to impact the health of pregnant women in India.

**Katie Cannon,** Director – Strategic Partnerships, brings more than 15 years of experience driving revenue and building impactful partnerships.

Fuelled by a belief that the future of health is both proactive and personalised, the commercial team supports our clients on their journey from the earliest concepts to successfully deployed products.

As health continues to move well beyond the walls of traditional healthcare providers, Katie’s highly-collaborative approach ensures our DHPs are embedded across the full health ecosystem and working well for all stakeholders to ensure the patient impact being targeted can be achieved.

**Dr. Neha Gupta,** Director – HealthMachine Research and Design, has experience building and scaling DHPs globally, with expertise in designing and deploying Software as Medical Devices.

She works between Avegen’s clients and our research and technical teams to capture and deeply embed the user voice in all our products, creating intuitive, quickly-adopted solutions that deliver results.

Beginning her career in dentistry, before shifting to work with the earliest innovators in digital health, as well as a stint in big pharma to drive digital adoption from within, Neha knows firsthand the empathy, imagination and motivation it takes to lead teams that are building the future.

**Dr. Rahee Walambe**, Director of AI/ ML is an experienced Applied AI researcher who has built her career combining core research with cutting edge technology to create unique ideas and prototypes.

Rahee is passionate about application and development of state of the art AI/ ML techniques and works with Avegen’s clients to identify where such technical advances can shape their future vision of healthcare delivery and secure even greater impact for users of their DHPs.

Squads

In response to client demand and growing expertise, in 2022 we shifted to working in cross-functional squads focused on 4 key indication areas – Mental Health, Cardiovascular, Infectious Diseases and Maternal Health.

This structure allows us to work even more closely with our clients, deepening our understanding of the patient’s lived experience of their long term condition. HealthMachine™ remains condition agnostic and able to support the full spectrum of DHPs, but these specialisms allow us to move faster for our clients.

We have developed a range of hyper-relevant, reusable modules, content and insights that deliver meaningful user engagement and lasting behaviour change for all long term conditions.

Our squads are structured to maximise both experience and expertise. They are multi-disciplinary, composed of designers, developers, QA and data engineers, with implementation at their core and the user as their focus. They work collaboratively and efficiently, sharing the regulatory expertise and human resource support that sits at Avegen’s core.

Meet Avegen’s management team

**Dr. Mithun James**, Associate Director, HealthMachine – Maintenance – spearheads product engineering for Avegen, leading our Incubator where our latest modules and newest indications are shaped and tested by a dedicated team . A medic by training, he did his Masters in Medical Science and Technology and is passionate about applying his inter-disciplinary skill set in medicine and information technology to improve healthcare delivery.

**Dr. Katrin Hulme,** Associate Business Unit Director, Product, Research & Design, is a health psychologist with an integrated research, clinical and consultancy background across a wide range of settings. Katrin is passionate about digital health as a way to integrate mental and physical care in long-term condition management, which fuels her work at Avegen.

Gaurav Joshi

Business Unit Manager

Gaurav Joshi, Business Unit Manager, has experience in growth marketing and entrepreneurship. As TFH’s program manager Gaurav leads Avegen’s maternal health efforts to ensure that pregnant women have access to personalised, reliable and clinically vetted information to support a healthy pregnancy.

**Varsha Bawari**, Business Unit Manager, has a Masters in Computer Applications and is a certified Six Sigma Green Belt practitioner. Having being introduced to coding when she was 7, Varsha can code in any programming language and leads Avegen’s team focussing on deploying high-quality Digital Health Products (DHPs) globally and ensuring they are technologically sound, compliant and impactful.

Meet Avegen’s clinical partners

Prof Prasanna Sooriakumaran MD PhD

Clinical Partner

Prof PS,Clinical Partner, is the Lead for Urology at Cleveland Clinic London. He is a world leader in prostate cancer care, the only surgeon to win the University of Surrey’s Alumni Achievement Award for his “significant contributions to society and the field of prostate cancer care”. He was triple nominated for the Crystal Matula Award, awarded to the most promising young academic urologist in Europe and specialises in Retzius-sparing robotic prostatectomy, an operation that has far fewer side-effects than the standard robotic procedure in select prostate cancer patients.

Learn more about Life @ Avegen

Values

From day 1 Avegen’s culture has been flat. We work as a team, collaboratively, supporting each other to meet new challenges and deliver exemplary work for our loyal clients. Every employee is encouraged tod learn, grow and speak up for the user at the heart of our products.

Benefits

This collaborative team spirit is embodied by

flexible working policies
weekly learning and well-being events
regular socials
personalised training and development plans

Learn more about working @ Avegen

“My days are always varied working in Discovery. I scope potential digital solutions across a range of long-term health conditions, plan content, understand the patient user journey and review research evidence. I enjoy the positive energy shared by team members, the dynamic nature of the projects and the opportunities I’ve had to develop professionally and personally.”

Dr. Katrin Hulme

Associate Director - Product, Research & Design

“I am responsible for delivering pixel perfect UI Designs which are backed by research and enhance the user experience. I believe things created by humans need users, so let’s create something useful!”

Gurvinder Sing Punj

UI/UX Designer

"I have the responsibility for the end-to-end management of the implementation process and key deliverables for clients. I am responsible for leading and managing the project lifecycle. Maintaining strong communication with all stakeholders is key, both internally and externally."

Helena McGrath

Implementation Manager

“What I enjoy the most about working on Together For Her is it is intrinsically agile - the fast-paced, impact-driven and ever-improving nature of our work.”

Krity Kansara

Product Lead

“My day to day responsibility is to ensure that the company is compliant to the different quality management standards globally to help our products gain market access. I work closely with the MHRA and notified bodies who certify us so we continue to set the right goals and objectives as an organisation.”

Rohan Parge

Regulatory Manager

"I joined as an Associate Software Engineer and as one of the oldest employees of Avegen, I take pride in being part of the journey. I have witnessed exponential growth, driven by strategy changes that have helped me shape my career. I’m continuously pushed to think out of the box and supported to achieve new heights."

Sawali Kale

Business Insights Lead

"A typical day for me involves lots of coding, fixing technical issues, lots of fun! I’ve been at Avegen for over 4 years and it is a great company for freshers, as well as those with experience, who want to explore their knowledge.”

Trupti Kate

Mobile Developer

"At Avegen there’s always something new to learn and I’m happy to push my limits. Everyday, a new opportunity awaits you.”

Varsha Bawari

Delivery Manager and Tech Lead

More Case Studies

PAH

Problem Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare, progressive, and life-threatening condition, for which there is no cure and therefore requires constant management by patients. Avegen was given the task to set-up a digital health solution that will support patient self-management and improve the patient-clinician connect. The goal of PAH management is to maintain low-risk […]

STOP

STOP (Successful Treatment Of Paranoia) is a patient-facing app that aims to reduce clinical symptoms of paranoia, in patients with mild to moderate paranoia. It is a self-administered 12-week programme using Cognitive Bias Modification for Interpretation therapy (CBM-I). Avegen in collaboration with King’s College London designed and set up STOP, the smartphone version of the therapy.

KLICK

Klick is a digitally-enabled HIV care pathway conceptualised by Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Foundation Trust (CWFT), Avegen and a major pharmaceutical company. Klick was designed and built by Avegen to integrate with and enhance CWFT’s outpatient service model, whilst delivering a positive experience for patients.

Building transformative DHPs requires a dedicated, innovative, multi-discipline team

Meet our founders

Two disciplines, two perspectives, one vision —
improving healthcare

Our efforts are powered by a global, multi-discipline team, but Avegen began
with two co-founders, where two halves made a whole.

Meet Avegen’s leadership team

Dr. Nayan Kalnad

Neeraj Apte

Dr. Sumiti Saharan

Katie Cannon

Dr. Neha Gupta

Dr. Rahee Walambe

Squads

Meet Avegen’s management team

Dr. Mithun James