Vik Kashyap has worked in the heart of the technology world for more than 15 years. He is the Founder & CEO of Toi Labs, a healthcare startup advancing science through innovative bathroom technology. Kashyap’s work and life story have garnered national attention, having been covered in two science books.
 

A Harvard graduate, Vik Kashyap also completed coursework at MIT and UC Berkeley in electrical engineering.

 
In 2004, Vik Kashyap created the first online health savings account. During Vik’s involvement, he signed multiple Fortune 500 health insurers and financial institutions as customers, including Wells Fargo, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Coventry Health. After pioneering the use of technology for such consumer-directed health accounts, it was purchased by Aetna (CVS Health), where it is used today to manage millions of consumers’ health expenses through the HealthHub service.

Vik took some time to travel in 2014 and during a trip to Japan, he was invited to advise one of Japan’s largest software companies. This quickly turned into a full-time job, and after a year of commuting, Vik Kashyap moved to Tokyo and immersed himself in Japanese business culture as one of the only Americans in a 5000-employee company. His time in Japan influenced him to help others understand more about the unique characteristics of Japan’s culture and business environment.

Toi Labs is Vik Kashyap’s most exciting companies to date, and has direct ties to his personal life. At 28 years of age, he was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. After his illness did not respond to usual treatments, his doctor recommended surgical removal of his colon. To avoid this, he began an experimental journey that led him to pioneer a new treatment that involved identifying, isolating, and embryonating the human whipworm as a therapy. Very few people were willing to help him due to liability concerns, so he learned parasitology techniques. The treatment surprisingly worked, and Vik decided to try to understand the mechanism of action, persuading scientists at UCSF in 2006 to study the effects of the worm. They collaborated successfully and published their findings in Science Translational Medicine in 2010 and since then their research has been widely cited (200+ citations) and used to develop new medications to treat the disease.

From this discovery, Vik invented a new device, based on toilet technology, that generates an entirely new scientific data set to understand and improve human health. At Toi Labs, a team of world-class experts in engineering, science and healthcare delivery is transforming the way health information is gathered in the home. Vik is confident that by opening new doors to empower consumers, Toi Labs can save lives and reimagine the way we think about health.