The daily suffering caused by seasonal allergies and environmental allergens is well known to chronic allergy patients. They may also be familiar with allergy shots, a treatment that calls for weekly or monthly visits to an office for injections. An alternative remedy, allergy drops, is less popular, but easier to use.
Relatively, Wyndly, a startup that aims to make allergy drops more accessible to individuals, secured $2M in funding in a round including Y Combinator, Goodwater Capital, Civilization Ventures, Sweater Ventures, and Kevin Mahaffey.
Wyndly, founded in New York in 2020 by Dr. Manan Shah, President of the Colorado Ear, Nose, and Throat Society, and entrepreneur and software engineer Aakash Shah, treats patients with environmental allergies through sublingual immunotherapy. This treatment aids in the desensitisation of the body to allergens and the retraining of the immune system’s reaction.
Prior to the pandemic, Dr. Manan Shah, an otolaryngologist (a doctor of the ears, nose, and throat), would schedule appointments for his patients, evaluate them, and then prescribe customised allergy drops to help them educate their immune systems to combat allergy triggers. Shah started using telemedicine to treat his allergy patients when the COVID-19 outbreak struck.
“Allergies affect each and every person differently – there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. At Wyndly, we’re bridging a gap in the traditional healthcare system by delivering superior care through accessible and convenient telehealth,” said Aakash Shah, founder and CEO of Wyndly. “Our practice represents a paradigm shift in the way we think about treating this common illness. We’re on a mission to find and serve the patients that the healthcare system is not incentivized to treat, and with incredible support from our investors, we’re positioned to do just that.”
Wyndly provides telemedicine and at-home services, giving allergy patients a quick, painless solution to efficiently get rid of allergy symptoms. The practice was created with the goal of enhancing the specialist care experience. Patients may easily schedule online appointments, have access to physical offices when necessary, and receive treatment at their homes.
Free allergy test
Wyndly charges $99 per month for allergy drop treatment, which may total roughly $594 if a patient uses them for six months. The allergy test is free if you become a patient, but it costs $200 if you do not.
“We’re seeing an increase in allergy symptoms that correlates directly with our increasingly urban existence, pushing over 60 million allergy sufferers into the hands of only 4,000 allergists,” said Dr. Shah. “As a history-based diagnosis, allergies continue to be a perfect use case for telehealth, meanwhile the existing healthcare system has no incentive to shorten wait times or offer painless treatment – but we knew there had to be a better way.”
“I’m really excited about Wyndly. The way we treat allergies today, with Zyrtec and Claritin, is medieval medicine. These methods simply attempt to mask the underlying problem rather than solve it,” said Jared Friedman, Group Partner at Y Combinator. “Allergy immunotherapy is the future. Most people don’t realize that allergies are now a curable disease. In the future, taking antihistamines for allergies is going to seem like taking Tylenol for an ear infection. Why would you treat the symptoms when you could just cure the disease?”
