A combination of knowledge: October 2021

Laurence Girard is the CEO & Founder of COVID. MD in addition to Fruit Street Health (www.fruitstreet.com) which delivers the CDC's Diabetes Prevention Program to commercial health plans and employers via group telehealth video conferencing with registered dietitians, wearable devices such as Fitbit and wireless scales, and a mobile application which allows participants to take photos of their food and receive feedback. The DPP resulted from clinical work conducted by the Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group, which conducted a major multicenter clinical research study that was published in 2002.

The study contained 3,234 participants who were overweight and had prediabetes, and was aimed at discovering whether modest weight loss through dietary changes and increased physical activity or treatment with the oral diabetes drug metformin (Glucophase) was more effective at preventing or delaying type 2 diabetes. Among its findings, the study showed that people at risk for developing diabetes can prevent or delay the onset of diabetes by losing a modest amount of weight through diet and exercise. DPP participants in the lifestyle intervention group reduced their risk of developing diabetes by 58 percent during the study. Lifestyle changes worked particularly well for participants aged 60 and older, reducing their risk by 71 percent.

Fruit Street is supported by 500 physician investors who invested more than $25 million into the company.

Laurence's passion for entrepreneurship started at the Harvard Innovation Lab which is the entrepreneurship center at Harvard University.

Laurence Girard is also an alumni of the Kairos Society which is a global network of social entrepreneurs focused on having a social impact.

Fruit Street was also accepted to Startup Health (www.startuphealth.com) which provides mentorship and collaboration to 200+ healthcare startups working on moonshot healthcare visions.