Company leader
Myra Ahmad
Founder and CEO
Mochi Health
Myra Ahmad, MD, is founder and chief executive of Mochi Health, a telehealth marketplace where a patient chooses a clinician and a pharmacy for weight care and for other treatment such as skin, hair, and mental health. She started it after her research showed that patients with obesity moved between specialists with no one treating the disease.
Researching Obesity Care
She earned an undergraduate degree at Wellesley College and an MD at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and she held research positions at MIT and UCSF. Her research asked why patients with obesity so often fail to get the care they need. Again and again she found them moving among bariatric surgeons, endocrinologists, and primary care doctors, none of whom treated the underlying disease. "I felt the need to do something," she said.
Starting Mochi Health
In 2022 she founded Mochi Health in San Francisco, California, as a three-sided marketplace joining patients, clinicians, and independent pharmacies, and the pharmacies fill prescriptions at prices the patient can see. "We raised funding in March 2022," she said. "Then by late 2022, we became profitable and have continued operating off existing cash flow since then."
She argues that obesity deserves the frank treatment talk other conditions get. "If someone comes to a doctor for depression or anxiety, providers discuss medications and treatment options openly," she said. "Historically, obesity wasn't treated that way."
Growing Past Weight Care
Mochi has served more than 500,000 patients across 15 treatment areas and offers more than 2,000 medications. She calls it the "discovery layer of healthcare", a place where a patient can find a clinician and stay with one.