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Launch HN: Wyndly (YC W21) – Allergy relief through at-home oral drops

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21–30 of 144 posts

Re: Launch HN: Wyndly (YC W21) – Allergy relief through at-home oral drops

#21
post #9

General feedback: - I want to try this but I'm not sure how much it will cost in total. I see a lot of hints, but no clear pricing on the total treatment cost. I know from experience with a local allergy clinic, this treatment is ridiculously expensive. - I also see no claims around how long the treatment will last (on average) - I'm not sure I understand how an at home allergy test works or suffices for diagnosis. I…

Thank you for the feedback! On total cost: We charge $99/mo. It's hard to give a total cost without knowing more about each person's specific allergy triggers and how well immunotherapy takes for them. Generally, we expect patients to be with us for up 5 years. On how long treatment lasts: I spoke to this in the total cost section, but it's hard to make a blanket statement. On our at-home allergy test: We use a CLIA-…

Is IgE present in the bloodstream if I have not been exposed to the allergen recently? E.g. will I show as positive for a pet dander allergy if I have not been around pets for many years?

Re: Launch HN: Wyndly (YC W21) – Allergy relief through at-home oral drops

#22
post #15

I would recommend toning back some of the emotional language in your treatment comparison table -- things like "confusing terminology", "Busy staff with no time to help", and "Unhelpful Google searches". Your value prop of convenience of no shots is super obvious to me but the biased comparison table is a turn-off. It would give me a lot more confidence if the language in the table were more scientific and clinical.…

Thanks for your feedback! When we redo our site, we'll keep it in mind.

Re: Launch HN: Wyndly (YC W21) – Allergy relief through at-home oral drops

#23
post #16

This is incredible, congratulations on your launch! I'm currently working on a product for companies in your space. I'm in the research phase - do you mind if I reach out to you for a quick chat?

Sure! Send a quick email to aakash@wyndly.com

Re: Launch HN: Wyndly (YC W21) – Allergy relief through at-home oral drops

#24
post #3

Aakash, what is the intended age for this product? I am asking because I have two younger children with food allergies.

OIT (oral immunotherapy) and SLIT (sublingual) is still in a clinical research stage for food allergies; however, a small subset of doctors do currently offer it in their own practice outside of the research setting (see oit101.org). Some of these practitioners do tell patients at some point that they have achieved "sustained unresponsiveness." Most allergists do not yet offer it as there is no standardized protocol for it, it's not considered "standard of care."

The first food allergy OIT product, Palforzia, released last year. It's claim to fame (and competitive moat) is the combination of them sponsoring a series of large trial using the same, standardized protocol which now has become part of the drug labeling, so physicians don't have to decide themselves, as well as a exclusive supply agreement for peanut flour that is characterized so each pre-measured capsule has a known amount of protein rather than just a known amount of flour.

From what I remember, SCIT (sub-cutaneous allergy shots) have generally not performed very favorably in research for food allergies; they cause too many severe adverse reactions and they are not anyone's favorite anyway.

Re: Launch HN: Wyndly (YC W21) – Allergy relief through at-home oral drops

#25

Congrats on your launch! This sounds really promising! How do you deal with the risk of severe reactions? Is that risk diminished with drops instead of shots? I'm undergoing shot therapy now and had a life threatening anaphylactic reaction to a shot just a couple months ago. I'm concerned if I had been by myself at home I may have died? I was at the doctors office but they still called 911 for "backup" because I got…

I'm sorry you had to go through that experience. I've fainted in a doctor's office and woken up in an ambulance. It was a very unpleasant experience. The risk of severe reaction is much less with allergy drops compared to allergy shots [1]. Allergy drops expose the patient to less allergen and in a less invasive way at any given time compared to allergy shots. Allergy drops are much less concentrated (because they're…

Unpleasant indeed, I'm delighted to hear your whole approach reduces that risk! Seems like you have far better approach, congrats!!

Re: Launch HN: Wyndly (YC W21) – Allergy relief through at-home oral drops

#26
post #19

Congrats on your launch! This sounds really promising! How do you deal with the risk of severe reactions? Is that risk diminished with drops instead of shots? I'm undergoing shot therapy now and had a life threatening anaphylactic reaction to a shot just a couple months ago. I'm concerned if I had been by myself at home I may have died? I was at the doctors office but they still called 911 for "backup" because I got…

Based on this video [1] linked in the OP, it seems like one of the big benefits is that anaphylaxis is not a side-effect of the drops. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpP41WQ6pBc

Indeed, thank you!

Re: Launch HN: Wyndly (YC W21) – Allergy relief through at-home oral drops

#27
I have a dust mite allergy and have tried doing this in the past, but had to stop because I moved away from my allergist. I would be interested in this type of service, but $99/month is a bit expensive for me. I have health insurance, is there any way I could get them to pay for it for me?

I have had surgery for nasal polyps related to this twice if that might help my case.

Re: Launch HN: Wyndly (YC W21) – Allergy relief through at-home oral drops

#29
post #27

I have a dust mite allergy and have tried doing this in the past, but had to stop because I moved away from my allergist. I would be interested in this type of service, but $99/month is a bit expensive for me. I have health insurance, is there any way I could get them to pay for it for me? I have had surgery for nasal polyps related to this twice if that might help my case.

Unfortunately, we don't accept insurance right now because of the complexities involved with insurance and telemedicine (the laws are literally being written right now).

If you have an HSA or FSA, you can put it towards treatment with us. Many of our patients have employer-funded HSAs that they put towards their treatment.

Re: Launch HN: Wyndly (YC W21) – Allergy relief through at-home oral drops

#30

How will you deal with an anaphylactic shock when someone takes too much of your therapy product?

The good news is the risk of anaphylactic shock with allergy drops is incredibly low. The literature cites that risk as 1/billion or 1/100 million which is thankfully very low. Indeed, in 30 years of using allergy drops there has never been a documented reaction that caused a death.

Like I do for all of my in office patients that also take at home allergy drops we always educate our patients thoroughly about the risks of treatment and the correct way to use it. We also use the same emergency plan for our patients as we have used in office.

Thankfully in the thousands of patients I, and most of my colleague physicians, have treated this has not been an issue.

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