People helping people

Inspired by our own stories, our mission is to use the power of shared experiences to provide relief to patients and families navigating rare and complex conditions.

We see a future where any patient, at any stage, of any condition, has immediate access to exceptional guidance on the best personalized actions to take at that point in time.

Our story

When co-founder Nasha Fitter’s youngest daughter was diagnosed with the rare disease FOXG1 syndrome, Nasha quickly learned that despite access to great care there was little to no information about the disease or how to navigate it, and not a single therapy on the market. She launched a nonprofit organization to address this gap and quickly found that access to rich clinical information was the biggest gap in advancing research for a cure.

In 2023, Nasha and Farid co-founded Citizen Health to fundamentally flip the system on its head: empowering patients to drive their care and research through their own health data and accelerate treatments for those who need it most.

In 2017, Farid co-founded a company, Ciitizen, where the goal was to build a platform that allowed cancer patients seamless access to their data. When Nasha joined the company in 2018 and helped evolve its focus into rare disease, it became clear that this unique approach could unlock key clinical data and build a patient community that could fundamentally shift care for patients with rare diseases while accelerating cures.

Our team

We are a mission-driven team of builders, rare disease advocates, clinicians, engineers and scientists united around an audacious vision. Our seasoned founding team has a history of successful exits in healthcare and consumer startups with a relentless passion to improve the lives of the patients and families we serve.

Team Members

  • Farid Vij — Co-Founder, CEO
  • Nasha Fitter — Co-Founder, Chief Business Officer
  • Daniel Wang — Chief Technology Officer
  • Deven McGraw — Chief Regulatory Officer
  • David Fisch — Platform Growth, Board Member
  • Jessica Chao — Operations
  • Zoe Dahl — Engineering
  • Kate Haldeman — Partnerships
  • Mequel Bunch — Patient Services
  • Danee Ettere — Operations
  • Elli Brimble — Clinical Strategy
  • Terris Linenbach — Engineering
  • Samantha Alda — Operations
  • Jing Yu — Engineering
  • Geo Beek — Partnerships
  • Kirsten Spenuzza — Clinical Strategy
  • Jake Heller — Product
  • Ashley Mabry — Operations
  • Sean Lee — Engineering
  • Thomas Corcoran — Engineering
  • Elizabeth Blomenberg — Clinical Strategy
  • Hannah Williams — Clinical Strategy
  • Mariah Crabtree — Operations
  • Jacob Helm — Engineering
  • Todd Reinglass — Life Sciences
  • Ben Mendelsohn — Design
  • Heather Buttles — Operations
  • Jonathan Currie — Engineering
  • Vivek Veeramani — Engineering
  • Lin Wan — Engineering
  • Dana Burrows — Engineering
  • Lauren Flickinger — Product
  • Yuyi Li — Engineering
  • Max Kornblith — Growth
  • Michelle Aman — Operations
  • Jackson Sutherland — Engineering
  • Brooke Pukas — Operations
  • Katherine Conway — Operations
  • Steven Le — Life Sciences
  • Brian McDonell — Engineering
  • Emily McNaughton — Operations
  • Kelsey Frahlich — Operations

Our investors

Our principles

  1. Work for the patients
    Not for the systems that serve them.
  2. Fearlessly build the future with urgency
    Don’t incrementally improve the status quo.
  3. The future is built by the doers
    Good ideas alone will not change the world.
  4. Speed is of the essence
    But we need robust technology to scale and succeed.
  5. Life is hard enough
    Let’s never make it any harder for our community.