Entrepreneur Is Committed to Serving the Arthritis Community

By D. Aileen Dodd | Oct. 21, 2024
 
Dr. Jin Lee is an entrepreneur with a PhD who has worked on all sides of the health care industry, from insurance and pharmaceuticals to patient care. And she’s been quite successful. But neither her drive nor her years of experience could save her from the frustration of having to spend years to find the right diagnosis for her husband’s nagging back and hip pain.
 
It was exasperating, says Dr. Lee. His primary care physicians just couldn’t seem to figure out why he was suffering. “In the beginning, it was like, ‘He must have fibromyalgia or maybe he’s just been working at his desk for too long, and he should try yoga and physical therapy,’” she exclaims.
 
But she was sure there was something more to it.
 
“I took my husband to see three rheumatologists, two acupuncturists, two physical therapists, one chiropractor and a mental health therapist,” she says. “Finally, after 12 doctors, we got a confirmed diagnosis: He had axSpA.”

Axial spondylarthritis (axSpA), which affects about 1% of the population, can cause debilitating pain in the spine and pelvic joints. In its worst state, the condition can lead to the fusing of joints in the back and rib cage. And for some with underlying health conditions, it can even increase the risk of a heart attack or stroke.
 
He sought treatment for his pain, but Dr. Lee never forgot the anxiety of trying and failing to find the right diagnosis. She would later dedicate her career to improving the early detection of axSpA and become a national influencer in the arthritis community.

 

It is a calling for Dr. Lee; she was born to help others.
 
Dr. Lee, the oldest child of two Chinese immigrants, spent her early years in a rural fishing and farming community in southeastern China bordered by mountains and hammered with torrential rain. It was not unusual for her relatives and neighbors to suffer achy joints, which they attribute to the damp environment. The area has been studied by medical researchers as a hotbed for arthritis, she says.
 
“Where I come from, it is pretty common for people to have acupuncture to treat their pain.”
 
When she left her grandmother’s home in China and joined her parents in the United States, she was determined to pursue a career as a doctor.
 
She soared through middle and high school among the top students in her classes and received multiple scholarships to attend the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in neuroscience and biology and minored in psychology. But after pursuing a PhD at Oxford University, she decided instead to focus on building a career in another branch of health care.
 
She was hired by a national health insurance giant, where her job was to leverage emerging technology for people receiving Medicare. But after two years, she yearned for a new challenge working more directly with patients. In 2014, she went to work for a 51-hospital system. She became an investor at its venture capital fund that evaluated medical devices and software platforms for patients and doctors.
 
Soon after, she got engaged and relocated to San Francisco to start a family — and a health care venture of her own. Utilizing her tech background, Dr. Lee founded BabyNoggin, a digital health company that helped track the cognitive development of children. It provided early screenings for developmental delays, such as autism. But soon after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she had to stop operations.
 
In 2020, Dr. Lee went back to work, taking a job as global director of digital health at one of the largest Tokyo-based pharmaceutical companies. While she settled into her new role, she also juggled the responsibilities of motherhood and caregiver. She taught herself various acupressure, relaxation methodologies, and physical exercise  so she could help ease the undiagnosed arthritis pain in her husband’s neck and back. Her husband was diagnosed with (axSpA) in 2023.
 
Soon, Dr. Lee would also seek a medical diagnosis of her own. She had been experiencing undiagnosed back pain for years after a car accident. Medical tests eventually revealed that she had osteoarthritis (OA). And true to her nature, she learned all that she could about OA and even volunteered to lead a virtual OA support group for the Arthritis Foundation.
 
That’s when her next career move as an entrepreneur became clear. Dr. Lee was inspired to help people in pain — potentially from auto-inflammatory diseases, such as axSpA, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or lupus — get diagnosed and treated faster. So, she launched a new virtual clinic to provide patients with immediate access to a multidisciplinary team of doctors, such as rheumatologists,gastroenterologists, and physical medicine and rehabilitation doctors, who work together to get them tested, diagnosed and treated in a timely way.
 
“Seeing how much pain my husband went through, and even for me, I was like, ‘There has got to be a better way,’” Dr. Lee says. “On average, a patient like my husband will see eight to 10 doctors and have a delay of about eight years to get diagnosed.”
 
And it can get worse, she adds. “We saw a patient who was a veteran who said our doctor was the 32^nd doctor he had seen. Our providers were able to get him diagnosed within a week and get approved for the right biologics within days. Our goal is to connect the right patient with the right specialist for the right treatment at the right time, all from the comfort of a patient’s home.”