Founder of NetDoctor, the leading source for expert health tips, joins Clinova
Alex Ballantyne joins the UK-based, US-focused digital consumer healthcare group as part of its global expansion.
London, November 1st 2022: Clinova, the rapidly expanding global digital consumer healthcare company based in London has appointed Alex Ballantyne, the founder of NetDoctor and fomer CEO of Hearst Digital, to advise its Board on growth and content as the business prepares for its next phase.
Alex was the founder and CEO of NetDoctor, an online digital health publisher which provides consumers with easy-to-understand evidence-based medical information. With venture capital funding, the website was expanded into nine European geographies, attracting monthly audiences of 50 million people, making NetDoctor one of the world’s leading publishers of health information. Following its acquisition by Hearst, Alex was appointed CEO of Hearst Digital and led the transition of Hearst Magazines into the digital age. Brands such as Esquire, Men’s Health, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Harper’s Bazaar led the transformation, resulting in a standalone digital profit centre complementing traditional activities.
Following Hearst, Alex grew subsequent digital businesses from inside as a participating investor; activities which combined his long-term interests in healthcare improvement and digital technology. Innovations included disruptive health insurance models, as well as workplace and individual well-being services. Most recently, involvement with Liva Healthcare resulted in Liva’s online diabetes lifestyle coaching application being adopted at a national level by NHS England. Prescribed by doctors, the application offered patients a personalised lifestyle coach, accessible via an app fully reimbursed by NHS – the first scaled digital therapeutic service deployment in UK.
Clinova, the London-headquartered digital science-led company, saw its sales soar annually by more than 500% in 2020 versus the previous year, and again by more than 2000% like-for-like in Q1 2021. This rapid growth has been boosted by the success of O.R.S Hydration Tablets and Covaflu.
The company has also just launched the latest version of its search engine, healthwords.ai. Created by a team of pharmacists, family doctors and leading medical experts, the search engine empowers users with access to personalised, clear and accurate medical and wellness advice.
Beyond helpful content, Healthwords includes tailored product recommendations for smart self-care. Through additional reading and resources, Healthwords ensures that its users have all they need for the next step in their health journey.
Ballantyne said:
“I’m really excited to be joining Clinova, particularly at this stage in the company’s development.
Obviously, the growth of the digital healthcare market has been huge, but Clinova is more than that: the company uses apps and products to solve people’s real-life problems at a time when healthcare across the world has never been more vital and, simultaneously, more stretched. I’m looking forward to joining them on their journey and using my experience to take it to the next level.”
Arsalan Karim, Co-founder at Clinova said:
“We’re so pleased to have Alex join the team. At its inception, Clinova was me and my co-founder Charles Ebubedike identifying that there were clear and identifiable gaps in the healthcare services and products on the market. Now, we have a fully functioning machine in Clinova operating across 20 countries, and we are focusing all our efforts on the digital healthcare revolution. It was clear that the next stage for us was growing the team globally as we consider our next steps, and Alex’s appointment shows our commitment to that process.”
Alex Ballantyne
Advisor, Healthwords Content Team