Researchers estimate that 32 million Americans have food allergies, including 5.6 million children under age 18 — that’s one in 13 children, or roughly two in every classroom.
Please join us on October 4 for a panel discussion around the food allergy crisis, the challenges faced by food allergy parents and children, current treatment methods and future innovations around living with and food allergies. BCBSIL Innovation Fellow and “food allergy dad”, Adam Seidler, will interview Javier Evelyn, CEO of Alerje, Susie Hultquist, CEO of Spokin and Dr. Cathryn Nagler, co-founder and president of ClostraBio.
More facts about allergies:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the prevalence of food allergy in children increased by 50 percent between 1997 and 2011.
A recent study depicts that food allergies among American adults have a much higher prevalence than previously revealed, nearly 11 percent of adults are estimated to have a severe food allergy.
Between 1997 and 2008, the prevalence of peanut or tree nut allergy appears to have more than tripled in U.S. children.
Caring for children with food allergies costs U.S. families nearly $25 billion annually.
About the panelists
Javier Evelyn, a patient entrepreneur who personally suffers from multiple food allergies, is the Founder and CEO of Alerje, a MedTech & Digital Health startup. He's also a founding team member of MedTech Color, an organization aimed to advance the representation of persons of color in the medical device industry. He served as the 2017 Google for Entrepreneurs x CODE2040 Detroit EIR. Prior to this endeavor, he led in the development of mobile app projects for a multi-billion dollar health insurance company and pharmacy benefit manager. Before working in the tech industry, he was a founding team member of an independent insurance agency where he led in sales and management.
Susie Hultquist is the founder and CEO of Spokin. If there’s one thing she knows, it’s that managing food allergies requires significant time and effort. At the age of three, Susie’s oldest daughter was diagnosed with life-threatening food allergies. Years later, after spending hours researching what (if any) Girl Scout cookies were safe for her family, the impact of this lifelong condition really sank in. Realizing that existing solutions are fragmented and over-generalized, Susie created Spokin —a trusted, solution-based resource providing a combination of content, community, and tools all with the common goal to make it easier, faster, and safer to manage food allergies.
A longtime and well-respected advocate in the food allergy awareness space, Susie was recently featured in “The Peanut Problem” episode of the six-part Netflix documentary series, Rotten. She also co-founded a very successful fundraising and awareness event that raised $1.4 million and led to the establishment of Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) Chicago in 2008.
Prior to creating Spokin, Susie was a professional investor for close to 20 years who studied business models and platforms built for efficiency. Most recently, she was a portfolio Mmnager at Columbia Wanger Asset Management where she invested in public equities. At its peak, Susie managed a portfolio of mmall and mid-cap consumer discretionary and consumer internet stocks worth $2 billion, and co-managed a $400 million fund.
Jen Jobrack is a nationally recognized food allergy expert. Her areas of focus are public policy, regulation and legislation; education and training, raising public awareness; strategies and best practices to improve the health, safety and inclusion of people with life threatening food allergies.
For more than eight years, Jen served in leadership positions at Food Allergy Research and Education, the nation’s leading patient advocacy group for people living with this life-threatening condition. During that time, Jen led and facilitated more than 100 successful legislative campaigns nationwide focused on the health, inclusion and safety of people with food allergies. In 2019, Jen launched The Food Allergy Pros, LLC ., a firm that provides consultation to entities that serve the public as well as consumer packaged goods, pharmaceutical, food service, medical and other industries that wish to enhance the safety and inclusion of people living with food allergies.
Jen received her masters degree from The University of Chicago and her bachelor's degree from Bryn Mawr College. She resides in the Chicago area and is the mother of two sons, the elder of whom was diagnosed with food allergies at the age of 14 months.
Dr. Cathryn Nagler is the Bunning food allergy professor and professor of pathology, medicine and pediatrics at the University of Chicago. She graduated with honors from Barnard College, Columbia University, obtained her Ph.D. from N.Y.U. School of Medicine and did a postdoctoral fellowship at M.I.T. She was associate professor of pediatrics (immunology) at Harvard Medical School before joining the University of Chicago in 2009. Dr. Nagler has participated in numerous review panels for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America, NIDDK and NIAID, including the Food Allergy Expert Panel and has served the American Association of Immunologists as section editor for the Journal of Immunology, instructor for the Introduction to Immunology course and as member of the program, clinical immunology, publications and awards committees. Dr. Nagler’s research interests encompass the mechanisms governing tolerance to dietary antigens and the ability of intestinal bacteria to regulate susceptibility to allergic responses to food.
Adam Seidler has a passion for leveraging innovation, data and analytics to improve healthcare. In his 11 years with BCBSIL, he has held a variety of strategic roles including product development, product analytics, emerging markets and client consulting. In his current role as manager of client consulting, Adam helps clients uncover the drivers behind their cost trends through development and delivery of innovative and dynamic reports. Adam graduated from Indiana University with a concentration in public management and hospital administration.
