Striving to save $1 trillion in preventable disease spending: The SiteLabs approach

This is part of a series: Brief interviews with healthcare innovators

Welcome to another installment of our “Brief interviews with healthcare innovators” series highlighting the cutting-edge companies in the Labcorp Venture Fund portfolio. The mission of the Labcorp Venture Fund is to strategically invest in innovative businesses making healthcare more personalized, accessible and convenient.

These innovators use technology to satisfy their mission of improving health system operations and patient experiences while simplifying and reducing the growing duties of physicians, healthcare staff and administrators. 

This month, Heather Tabangcura, Associate Vice President and Head of Diagnostic Devices at Labcorp, and Darren Schaupp, CEO of SiteLabs, discuss the company's mission, innovative solutions and impacts they’ve made in the healthcare industry.

Labcorp is proud to be an investor in SiteLabs, a company transforming preventive care and early detection access in rural and underserved communities. Their innovative platform activates independent community pharmacies to deliver proactive health screenings where people live, work and gather, closing critical gaps in early detection and connecting at-risk populations with follow-up care.

Our partnership reflects a shared commitment to making preventive care more accessible, equitable and effective for the people who need it most, as the SiteLabs mission is to transform access for the roughly 100 million Americans at-risk and unengaged in care.

Origination of innovation

Heather Tabangcura: Tell us the company's founding story.

Darren Schaupp: Living and working overseas for 25 years shaped how I think about healthcare delivery. SiteLabs was founded out of a lifelong focus on solving access problems in complex environments.

I'm deeply indebted to scientists, clinicians, community health workers and local leaders across Africa, Asia and Latin America who consistently delivered smart solutions under constraints. They taught me that improving health isn't only about the science, it's about designing for logistics, trust and access realities.

I became especially focused on diagnostics and early detection. If you can identify disease earlier, you can dramatically change outcomes, whether it's leprosy in remote regions or chronic disease here in the U.S. 

We leverage the underutilized but trusted network of independent community pharmacies as new "front doors" for preventive cardiometabolic screening and care navigation. These pharmacies are embedded in the neighborhoods we need to reach most, making screening and care navigation far more convenient and accessible. 

Heather Tabangcura: What inspired you to start this healthcare venture?

Darren Schaupp: I was inspired by seeing firsthand how devastating it is when people can't access care early enough and how transformational it is when they can. In my work with neglected tropical diseases, diagnosis wasn't just a clinical step, it was a turning point to treatment and a different future. If someone knows what they have, they can enter a pathway to treatment and a very different future. 

I've also seen that access gaps exist everywhere, even in the U.S. Underserved and marginalized communities often face barriers like trust, convenience, time off work and availability, not an unwillingness to seek care. They may want to get checked, but can’t afford to miss work, can’t get an appointment or locate a provider, or simply don’t feel the system is built for them. 

SiteLabs exists to bring early detection into places people already go, with trusted local professionals, meeting people where they are and lowering barriers. We’re building a model that helps health systems, pharma companies and health plans engage communities earlier, before preventable conditions become life-altering emergencies. 

Heather Tabangcura: What specific problems does SiteLabs address?

Darren Schaupp: Current screening models rely on patients visiting healthcare settings, leaving large portions of the population unscreened until symptoms or crises occur. There's a critical need for a proactive, community-based model reaching individuals where they live, work and gather before acute or emergency events arise.

We believe many adults remain unengaged in preventive healthcare because they perceive themselves as healthy so they don't seek regular care. This lack of engagement contributes to high rates of undiagnosed chronic disease and costly emergency events. 

Nationally, nearly half of adults with hypertension and one in four with diabetes are undiagnosed. 75% of healthcare spending is on preventable chronic diseases. 

We believe that by leveraging our network to screen people in their communities (about one-third of the U.S. population, the majority of whom are in socially vulnerable areas), our approach could potentially save up to $1 trillion in unnecessary healthcare spend, while improving health outcomes and productivity for millions of Americans.

New technology in healthcare 

Heather Tabangcura: Describe your innovative solution and how it works.

Darren Schaupp: SiteLabs has built a turnkey platform transforming independent community pharmacies into scalable access points for preventive care, especially in rural healthcare deserts where pharmacies are often the most trusted point of care. We activate pharmacists to deliver proactive outreach and screening in community settings like churches, health fairs and workplaces rather than waiting for walk-ins.

Our platform and model shifts prevention from a passive service to an active engagement process, helping people identify risks early and connect to follow-up care.

Heather Tabangcura: What makes your solution unique and what advantages does it offer?

Darren Schaupp: SiteLabs' active, pharmacist-led outreach approach, supported by our technology platform, embeds prevention directly into a trusted infrastructure that already exists in local communities across the U.S. This allows pharmacists to deliver additional clinical services to their communities while guiding participants to education and follow-up care. 

Heather Tabangcura: What technologies do you use and how do you ensure reliability?

Darren Schaupp: Our innovation uses proprietary logistics and analytics software integrating pharmacist workflows, real-time screening insights and automated follow-up support. Reliability is non-negotiable, so we ensure accuracy through standardized protocols, pharmacist training and continuous quality monitoring.

Our platform enables consistent data capture and reproducible workflows so screening results are recorded securely and delivered clearly. While we don't diagnose, we do identify when results are abnormal and ensure patients receive educational materials and guidance on next steps, including connections to local primary care providers for follow-up.

We’re designed as infrastructure rather than a standalone service, enabling health systems and sponsors to deploy prevention programs rapidly without investing in new clinics or facilities. By combining technology with the physical reach of community pharmacies, we create a scalable pathway for rural preventive care delivery.

How technological innovation enhanced patient access and care

Heather Tabangcura: How has your solution improved patient care and operational efficiency? 

Darren Schaupp: SiteLabs improves care by identifying risk earlier, engaging individuals before crises and connecting rural populations to follow-up pathways they might never access alone. For some patients, this can literally mean the difference between life or death and for many it can dramatically improve their chances of preventing serious health conditions. For health systems, this means new and re-engaged patient volume, improved gap closure and measurable downstream value.

Heather Tabangcura: Can you share success stories demonstrating your solution's impact?

Darren Schaupp: Our Cone Health pilot screened over 6,300 participants across six pharmacies, with nearly 85% of screenings occurring outside pharmacy walls in community settings. We uncovered a substantial undiagnosed chronic disease burden and confirmed willingness among patients to engage when care is delivered locally. For example, 86% of patients had one or more abnormal screen results, but less than 40% of those participants were aware that they have or might have a chronic health condition.

The first 2,000 screenings alone generated over 250 downstream clinical encounters, showing how pharmacist-led screening creates a pipeline into follow-up care while strengthening population health efforts in underserved regions.

Heather Tabangcura: What metrics do you use to measure success?

Darren Schaupp: We measure outcomes that matter to patients, health systems, payers and sponsors: 

• Individuals screened (or enrolled in clinical trials)
• Abnormal screening rates
• Follow-up care rates
• Participant diversity
• Unengaged and rural participants reached
• Downstream healthcare encounters after screening

These enable SiteLabs to expand preventive screening access, reach often-missed populations and support earlier connections to appropriate follow-up care. We also think about outcomes across the ecosystem:

• Health systems: New and re-engaged patient volume, improved closure of preventive gaps, downstream encounters that support sustainability, scalable reach into rural areas without building new facilities
• Clinicians and healthcare staff: Fewer “missed” risks that surface later as urgent episodes, clearer pathways to follow-up after abnormal values and less administrative burden since community pharmacists handle outreach and screening logistics
• Health plans and sponsors: Earlier identification of cardiometabolic risk that can reduce preventable events and costs, as well as measurable screening reach into populations that are typically unengaged
• Patients and communities: Convenient access in trusted locations, easy-to-understand education resources, next-step guidance and a lower-friction entry point into primary care when abnormal results appear

Heather Tabangcura: What feedback have you heard from providers and pharmacists?

Darren Schaupp: We gather feedback continuously through pharmacist reporting, participant engagement behavior, follow-up rates and ongoing collaboration with partner health systems and clinical trial partners. Pharmacists are our frontline in rural communities and their insights help us refine workflows and improve delivery. 

For example, one pharmacist described a patient who stopped taking a statin after a prior normal cholesterol result. A later screening revealed an elevated LDL and reduced HDL, so the pharmacist was able to provide education that led the patient to resume medication. Another pharmacist reported how a patient concerned about uncontrolled blood pressure used their screening results to contact their primary care provider who adjusted their dosage on the same day. 

One health system leader summarized the operational value well: 

"The SiteLabs platform has been a critical enabler. Its streamlined workflow, accessible interface and structured reporting allowed our teams to understand our patients and the need for additional education on hypertension and diabetes. 

Just as importantly, it created a mechanism for closing the loop of ensuring patients have clear, actionable results and are connected to appropriate care pathways." -Walidah Karim-Rhoades, DNP, RN, CNM

The future of innovation in healthcare

Heather Tabangcura: What are your plans for future innovations?

Darren Schaupp: We're expanding SiteLabs beyond cardiometabolic screening into a broader prevention and early detection platform designed for scalability in both rural and urban areas. Future phases will grow to more pharmacies, integrate additional services like cancer and diabetic retinopathy screening, and deepen EHR and telehealth interoperability.

Our vision is to make community-based prevention the standard in regions that feel left behind. We're also accelerating clinical trial recruitment by leveraging our rural, community-embedded network to identify underrepresented, trial-ready populations.

Heather Tabangcura: Beyond your current focus, what other healthcare challenges interest you?

Darren Schaupp: Our platform is built for more than chronic disease screening. We're partnering with companies for clinical trial recruitment in areas like colorectal cancer and polycystic ovary syndrome, demonstrating how SiteLabs can support public health impact and life science innovation through decentralized access.

Heather Tabangcura: How do you stay ahead of emerging healthcare trends?

Darren Schaupp: We listen closely to patients, pharmacists, payers, health systems and experts. The industry is moving toward decentralized care, value-based models and earlier detection and we aim to sit at that intersection, creating scalable rural prevention, engagement and research pathways.

Heather Tabangcura: How do you plan to expand your reach and impact?

Darren Schaupp: Our growth strategy involves partnering with health systems, payers and clinical trial sponsors committed to expanding preventive care and research representation. With afootprint across thousands of independent pharmacies, we can scale nationally to reach tens of millions yearly, especially in rural and underserved areas.

As we expand beyond cardiometabolic screening into areas like mental health, diabetic retinopathy and other high-impact conditions, we'll deepen our ability to bring earlier detection, stronger engagement and more equitable access nationwide.

Partnering for innovation

SiteLabs is transforming preventive care for rural and underserved communities. Through innovative technology, pharmacist engagement and a community-based approach, they're driving measurable improvements in patient outcomes, operational efficiency and healthcare economics.

By shifting screening from a passive service to an active outreach, SiteLabs helps health systems and sponsors identify risk earlier, re-engage unconnected populations and generate measurable downstream follow-up care. For health system leaders focused on sustainable growth, improved access and measurable ROI, SiteLabs’ early results point to a scalable approach to extend preventive screening into communities without building new clinics, creating clearer pathways into ongoing care.

Labcorp is proud to support companies like SiteLabs who advance personalized, data-driven healthcare solutions and expand access to care. Contact Labcorp learn how we can help you scale successfully scale innovation.