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Twin Health, a startup that uses AI and wearable sensors to help people manage chronic metabolic conditions such as diabetes, launched a program Wednesday to treat obesity.
Twin, founded in 2018 and backed by $250 million in funding, creates a “digital twin,” or a replica, of a person’s metabolism on its app that changes in real time based on inputs from wearable sensors, like fitness trackers and scales, and individuals’ answers to questionnaires. Its technology then analyzes those data and suggests lifestyle changes, such as what foods to avoid or how many steps to take the next day to lose weight.
Twin’s goal is to help people stop taking expensive weight loss medication to provide a sustainable weight loss solution. Employers and health plans have been saddled with an avalanche of high costs from popular GLP-1 weight loss drugs like Wegovy.
Lisa Shah“There are people who don’t want to stay on them for life and they’re expensive. By removing them, most people will see a rebound in weight gain. Twin actually is able to remove them safely,” Twin Chief Medical Officer Lisa Shah told Endpoints News.
Twin works with health plans and employers, such as private equity giant Blackstone’s portfolio companies, that offer the program to workers as a benefit. The company is paid only if its users achieve certain clinical outcomes, Shah said.
And there’s some evidence to back up its technology. Twin published a 2023 study in the journal Endocrine Practice that found that people with type 2 diabetes who used its technology experienced reductions in their blood sugar levels and lost weight.