Adam Torres and Andrea Feigl discuss FII PRIORITY.
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Show Notes:
Listen to FII PRIORITY coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres and Andrea Feigl, CEO at Health Finance Institute, explore health impact, longevity and FII PRIORITY.
About Andrea Feigl
Andrea Feigl, Ph.D. MPH, envisions a world with less suffering from preventable diseases, where every person can live their life with full dignity and reach their fullest potential.
Andrea B. Feigl is an award-winning economist, health finance innovator, serial entrepreneur, and the founder & CEO of Health Finance Institute. With a rich background in global health, Andrea has been instrumental in addressing the economic burden of chronic diseases through innovative financing solutions. A recognized leader with a career spanning academia, public sector, non-profits, and international organizations, she has raised over $6 million to tackle non-communicable diseases globally.
Andrea is also the founder of Health Impact Credit, an innovative platform aimed at leveraging finance for health impact. She is a celebrated public keynote speaker, thought leader, and advocate for health equity, regularly featured in global media and key international forums. Andrea is a steering committee member of the Global Breast Cancer Care Consortium, the International Equity Forum, the World Economic Forum Global Alliance for Women’s Health, and the World Economic Forum’s Climate and Health Impact Alliance. Andrea is an extraordinarily skilled networker, coalition builder, and impact advocate, committed to driving sustainable global change. Andrea has received numerous awards, including the Fulbright Scholarship and the Salzburg Global Fellowship.
About Health Finance Institute
The Health Finance Institute (HFI) is a US-based non-profit organization that aims to design, catalyze, test, and scale novel financing instruments and pathways for noncommunicable diseases, or NCDs (diabetes, heart disease, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and mental health), with an ultimate goal of accelerating the expansion of fiscal space for NCDs globally. At the heart of HFI’s mission is that nobody chooses disease, as research shows that NCDs stem from a range of environmental and societal, social determinants, and biological factors, and HFI recognizes the severe economic burden that NCDs have on a global economy. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of death and disability, globally. Yet, there continues to be an under investment in action and health financing by the global community.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on BR Guest to apply. Alright. Today I have on the show Andrea Figu and she’s CEO over at Health Finance Institute.
And the way that we originally connected was through the FII event that was over in Miami, just a. And I just tell you, for the audience that hasn’t been listening to this series, I just was so impressed with the conference, everything they’re up to, and really just the work being done. So first thing first, Andrea, welcome to the show.
Thanks so much for having me, and I’m excited to talk to you about the work that I do. Wonderful. I guess just to get us kicked off here FII, ma’am I know you attended what were your thoughts on the conference, on the experience? It was really, really great. So what I really loved about this particular version of the FII conference, and I’ve been to several, several of them, was they had a very specific focus on longevity and health.
So they curated two conclaves, which was a round table meeting where we talked about healthy aging, healthy living investment and prevention, which is very much the focus of, our company. And what they did particularly well was curated leaders in that. Field and had really in depth discussions and in depth and specific networking.
So I got a lot out of this conference, both in terms of new connections and deepening existing ones. Now you mentioned you’d been to many or multiple others. What, what other ones have you gone to? ’cause this was my first one. It’s my first introduction to the organization and I was just, you know, I was just pleasantly surprised, honestly.
I was so I attended the their conference in Riyad in Saudi Arabia in fall 2022. So that was the first exposure to them. And it was, that one did not have a health focus. It was very, very large and it was sort of called Davos of the desert. Yeah. And then there were a couple of site events in New York that I attended during United Nations General Assembly.
And then this one in Miami, I made a point of going because of their focus on health, which they have been building over the last couple of years, which is a, a new area that they’re also expanding on. what do you think made this year so special? Like what were some of the, some of your takeaways?
I think it’s a convening platform. they have a bit of a barrier to entry, which means which is either financial or based on reputation or the type of work that you do. So that the level of representation of the company that, attends is really, really high level. I mean, they also have the, you know, the current president of the United States speaks.
So I think they, that, that definitely drew attention. They’re also opening an office in Miami, and I think what is making, what they’re doing special is, is that they’re what what’s really happening is, is that Saudi Arabia and the whole Middle East are, really becoming greater players at, in, in, global investment.
And they’re really showcasing that to the world. And so I think that. the growth and of their platform symbolizes also the growth of the importance of the Middle East and, and so specifically in a global financial landscape. So let’s switch focus a little bit here. Let’s get, I would like to spend some of the time we have here getting into what you’re working on over at Health Finance Institute as well.
So maybe first off, start by telling us a little about the organization. Yeah, so I founded and I lead the organizations now for about six and a half years. And what we focus on is really building a business case of investing in health. I’ve been in my previous career as a health economist, Harvard trained health economist.
We’ve shown that if you invest right in health, you can capture an additional five to 10% of growth of GDP. So for example, MAA was one of the keynotes at the conference, and he talked that AI will drive five to 9% of GDP growth in the last couple years, and this is why they have to invest billions of dollars into this emerging space.
Look over to health. We have shown again and again in the academic space that we’re leaving five to 10% of GDP growth on the table because we don’t in, we don’t make the right investments in access, adherence, and prevention. So I founded the Health Van Finance Institute to basically bring this business case closer to public private sector partnerships so that we can harness the, the, the power of, healthcare economics and actually driving business and economic growth and basically.
Explore the double, triple bottom line. So we do economic studies, we build business cases, we set up public private financial partnerships and we advise governments and the national organizations as well as startups on and investors on how to de-risk their investments in health particular areas in health, health areas.
Where do you see, and I’m sure there’s many places, but where, what kind of trends are you following within your space and like where do you see the opportunity or some of the opportunity? So in a specific area in cancer, we see a lot of opportunity in terms of early diagnostics and utilization of AI and, and prevention.
We have seen that early prevention actually saves million, actually billions through the healthcare system in breast cancer already. And now we’re developing a, we’re seeing a lot more diagnostics. That with interaction with AI, can actually really help. Drive early diagnostics, a lot of access savings to the systems and increase in productivity, the longevity space.
You know, people want to live longer, as long as possible, as healthy as possible. So, and that’s reflected in the conclaves and the focus area areas of FII. And then sort of a personalized personalized, health prevention treatment and sort of precision medicine and precision healthcare is really like a trend that we see as an emerging trend.
Hmm. What would you like investors to know about investing in companies that generate demonstratable health impact? Mm-hmm. I think I, I love this question. I think that. the ROI that you can have, if you invest in companies that, create better health outcomes has time and again, been sh shown to be higher than companies that actually are detrimental to health outcomes in the long run.
So. Mm-hmm. and we have seen. That by having non resilient healthcare systems, like in the pandemic, that you can have, 300, 400 billions of dollars wiped off balance sheets within months. And so basically by investing in companies that actually have a net positive impact on health, you are investing in greater productivity greater macroeconomic growth, and also healthier workforce.
So in the end it becomes sort of a self. A re self every, it re it reinforces itself positively. Mm-hmm. But right now that value isn’t necessarily captured in a company’s share value or portfolio. So this is an idea that we are exploring. Where we’re, we launched a product recently, it’s called the Health Impact Credit.
That me measures the net positive health impact that companies have. Hmm. My 10-year-old says, well, that’s so cool. Then McDonald’s can buy health impact credits from Moderna. So that’s the basic idea behind it, but it’s really to demonstrate the positive impact that companies have. That is also standardized that’s recognized globally and that could help companies address a market failure because the positive impact that they’re creating by creating better health isn’t captured in their portfolio value.
So we want to basically correct for that and an issue treatable tokens that reflect the positive value that they create in the economy as well. Now this is a new concept to me, so maybe go a little a little bit further. Like where did the health impact credit? Like where does this stand today?
Like again, this is new concept to me. It’s absolutely, yeah, you’re right. And I’m sorry to just bring that on you, but the basic idea is that, so by creating healthier population mm-hmm. We know that this helps. they’re bottom, they’re the own bottom line because they have fewer health expenditures.
They can be more productive members in society, but it’s also helpful for the companies they work in. And it’s also helpful for their insurers. It’s helpful, it’s, you know economically beneficial for the burden on government and public services and so on. So in health we have, measure the healthy life.
You lived with something called the quality, the quality adjusted life year. So one year lived in a healthy manner by one person is one quality. So we. Came up with in our MVP that we just launched during the World Bank Spring meetings. Mm-hmm. We looked at the, congratulations. Congrats on that. I gotta pause for a second there.
Go ahead. Yeah. So we were collaborating with Bayer in and their self care division, and we came up with five rubrics that basically. Captured the net positive health impact that they have as a company and that the self care industry has as an industry. And we looked at access. We looked at. We looked at access, we looked at impacted the healthcare system, impacted the individual as well as priority to the worst off.
And were able to capture both the monetary and the quality value that they as an industry and they as a, company, create globally. And put that to the test. And we created an app. And so that was the first step. We can basically say, okay, through creating that better access for. Through the healthcare products by lessening the burden on the healthcare system on secondary and tertiary care.
there’s actually several double digit billion dollar value created through health for, economies globally. And and the next step is once the methodology is accepted and that the way these rubrics are set up are being accepted, that these credits could be offered. These credits have direct health savings.
Impact to global health systems. to company, sorry. Not to companies, to to, to the countries that, that they’re operating in. So the, if it becomes a standard, right? That we say we want companies to be net positive. Health impact creators, then those that are falling short of that could basically offset.
So think about carbon offsets. They could also offset the negative health that they create by investing in companies that actually create positive health impact the same way. Or if you are like an investor that wants to invest in net positive health companies like. You want to invest in a green bond or a green building, this vehicle allows them to basically make these decisions based on that kind of accreditation without having to sift through a novel algorithm or due diligence that you have to have to create individually and in a bespoke manner.
So that’s, that’s the bigger idea behind that concept. Wow, that’s fascinating. and how far along is this? You said the MVP has been created, but how far along, like where do we stand this, like when, when do we hope to see some adoption? Let’s dream for a moment. By the way, there’s lot of, you know, entrepreneurs and a big, we’re hoping that by the end of the year we would actually have a, to like a credit trading space for the, for the big players in the esof industry.
So we have developed the rubrics and we you know, we have for, for the six biggest players we have. We have the app up and running for, for the Health Impact Visualization. We are currently in discussions with without, so we’ve been accepted as a portfolio project with the World Economic Forum and discussions with the World Bank and other players for, for, for data sharing and acquisition.
So, you know, maybe in Riyadh, FII. But at the end of the year, maybe we can show the fir, you know, we can have sort a private auction of health impact credits or something like that. Wow. Absolutely amazing. Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. That’s wonderful. Congratulations. I love when a big idea like this, like, you know, people accept it.
It has the Yeah. Ability to have big change and big impact and looks like it’s moving, so that’s amazing. Andrea, if somebody’s listening or watching this and they want to follow up and they wanna learn more about your work or health finance institute, how do they do that? Yeah, I think the. Visit our website, health finance institute.org m or email me [email protected] is probably that is two easiest ways of getting in touch.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, simply as that, as simple as that. Sorry. Yeah. No. Wonderful. And February, listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put the links in the show notes so you can just click on ’em and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet.
Hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Andrea, thanks again for coming on the show. Absolutely.
Thank you so much.
