*By Carlo Versano*
A new start-up wants to help patients and caregivers with the age-old problem of managing medications for chronic or serious illnesses.
Hero sprang from the mind of Kal Vepuri, whose aptly-named Brainchild Holdings led a $12 million investment round for the company, which produces an eponymous counter-top device that can store and dispense pills in pre-selected dosages at certain times.
Vepuri told Cheddar he came up with the idea after he became a caregiver for his ill mother.
"She took almost a dozen medications at one point," he said, and the task of organizing, remembering, and dispensing them, as well as dealing with multiple prescribing physicians and changing dosages became an overwhelming task.
So Vepuri took his experience as an entrepreneur and tech consultant to build Hero, which resembles a kitchen appliance married to an Apple device.
The problems surrounding medication management are what he called a "phantom issue" ー no one wants to talk about it, but a stunning number of people have to deal with it ー 70 million Americans have multiple chronic diseases, Vepuri said, and that number will unfortunately only go up as Baby Boomers age, and more millennials are tasked with taking care of their older parents (one-fourth of caregivers are already millennials).
"It's not really great dinner table conversation," he said, "But when you're one-on-one with somebody, and they bring up a problem that they've faced themselves and has been so personal to them and their family, they tend to understand it immediately."
The Hero device can't tell if a user has actually taken his or her pills, but it can remind that person (or a family member or caregiver) through an app notification.
Vepuri said he plans to use the new funding to educate consumers and develop partnerships and online direct-to-caregiver systems so that Hero can be a closed-loop solution for caregivers and patients alike.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/healthcare-start-up-hero-launches-with-12-million-seed-funding).
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global, breaks down September’s CPI print and inflation trends, explaining what it means for markets.
A big-screen adaptation of the anime “Chainsaw Man” has topped the North American box office, beating a Springsteen biopic and “Black Phone 2.” The movie earned $17.25 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend. “Black Phone 2” fell to second place with $13 million. Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million, respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on the manga series about a demon hunter. It's another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released a “Demon Slayer” film last month that debuted to a record $70 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration says flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility. The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports on Sunday morning soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. The hold on planes taking off for LAX lasted an hour and 45 minutes and didn't appear to cause continued problems. The FAA said staffing shortages also delayed planes headed to Washington, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
