Shashi Shankar

The through-line

Across every account of his work, Shashi Shankar returns to a single conviction: patients should own and control their own health data, and the system that currently manages that data is broken enough to have caused him personal harm before he decided to fix it professionally. The throughline runs from a personal cancer experience in his family to a company built explicitly to bypass the intermediaries — data brokers, fragmented health systems — that stand between patients and their own records [1][5].

On the origin of Novellia

Shankar's move into this space is described as growing out of a family cancer journey combined with direct exposure to how disorganized and inaccessible medical records can be [1]. That experience is presented as the motivating force behind building "something different" from the systems he had previously worked within, leading him to found Novellia as a patient-powered alternative to the existing data landscape [1].

On working with patients, not data brokers

A recurring emphasis in descriptions of Novellia's model is that the company works directly with patients rather than through data brokers to collect and consolidate health information [1]. This is framed as a structural choice: rather than assembling records from intermediaries, Novellia goes to the source, helping patients with serious medical conditions bring together their own medical history into a single record [2][3].

On the business model: free for patients, paid by pharma

The company's model, as described across sources, pairs free patient access with commercial data licensing. Patients use a free app to consolidate their medical history, while Novellia's revenue comes from providing anonymized real-world data to pharmaceutical companies, positioned as a way to accelerate drug development [2][3]. This dual structure is presented as central to Novellia's value proposition — patients get consolidated access to their own records at no cost, while the aggregated, anonymized data supports pharmaceutical research [2][3].

On patient access and control over records

Shankar's work is also described in terms of restoring patient control over historical medical data. Novellia is characterized as providing fast, secure access to as much as a decade of medical records, addressing a gap where patients are otherwise "left in the dark" about their own complete health history [5]. The stated aim is to put patients and their care back in control by giving them ownership of a consolidated record rather than leaving that history scattered and inaccessible [5].

Takeaways

• Novellia was founded in response to a personal family cancer experience and the frustration of navigating a broken health data landscape [1].
• The company works directly with patients rather than data brokers to build consolidated medical records [1].
• Patients access a free app to consolidate their medical history, including up to a decade of records [2][3][5].
• Novellia's revenue model relies on providing anonymized real-world data to pharmaceutical companies to help accelerate drug development [2][3].
• The stated mission centers on giving patients ownership and control of their own health data and care [5].