Season 2, Ep. 13 | Transforming Women’s Health with Rosalind Dx
In this conversation with Dr. Ella Fung and Dr. Nancy Schoenbrunner, co-founders of Rosalind Dx, we explore what happens when scientific rigor, lived experience, and a bold entrepreneurial leap collide around one simple but powerful idea: access.
Rosalind Dx is reimagining prenatal testing by moving it from complex, centralized genome sequencing to a faster, more affordable PCR-based approach. The result? A potential step-change in how non-invasive prenatal testing is delivered, who can access it, and how quickly families receive answers.
Ella takes us from Hong Kong to Cambridge to Oxford and into the deeply personal moment of navigating her own pregnancies, where she experienced firsthand how insurance coverage can determine access to critical information. Nancy shares the origin story that begins not in a boardroom, but with a dream, a whiteboard sketch, and decades of experience working alongside the inventors of PCR at Roche.
We talk about the leap from industry to startup life, the realities of fundraising as female founders, and why decentralizing advanced diagnostics could be one of the most important shifts in global women’s health.
This is a conversation about science, yes. It is also about equity, courage, and the willingness to build something new when the system doesn’t serve everyone equally. If you are interested in and care about the future of healthcare, about designing for access instead of exclusivity, and what it really takes to move from breakthrough idea to commercial reality, this is a must listen.
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Show Notes
Dr. Ella Fung is the co-Founder & CEO of Rosalind Dx. Ella has led R&D and company-building across the US and Asia, with over 8 years of experience spanning biopharma and diagnostics. Prior to founding Rosalind Dx, she was an early employee at multiple life science startups, driving R&D strategy and innovation to advance solutions from lab to bedside.
Earlier in her career, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Pfizer in Boston. Dr. Fung holds a Ph.D in Oncology from the University of Oxford, an MS in Genetics from Université Paris Diderot, and a BA (Hons) in Natural Sciences (Genetics) from the University of Cambridge.
Nancy Schoenbrunner is the co-founder of Rosalind Dx, a scientist-entrepreneur and diagnostics executive with over 25 years of experience translating breakthrough science into real-world healthcare solutions. Trained as a biophysicist, she has led cross-functional global teams across R&D, product development, intellectual property strategy, and commercialization.
Nancy has guided multiple first-in-class diagnostic technologies from concept to regulatory approval and market launch. She is an inventor on more than 30 issued and pending patent families and has built strategic partnerships spanning academia, industry, and global health organizations.
Her work sits at the intersection of science, innovation, and impact — with a focus on bringing sophisticated molecular technologies into practical, accessible healthcare settings.
Key More Elephant Takeaways in this Episode:
Rosalind Dx is leveraging PCR technology to replace expensive, centralized genome sequencing with a faster, lower-cost, and more scalable approach to non-invasive prenatal testing.
Access to prenatal diagnostics is not just a medical issue. It is an equity issue. Insurance coverage and geography currently determine who receives the most accurate information during pregnancy.
Decentralizing testing from a handful of global sequencing hubs to regional labs can dramatically reduce cost, turnaround time, and systemic inefficiency.
Female-led innovation in women’s health is gaining momentum, particularly in ecosystems that intentionally address historic funding bias.
and more…
More About Rosalind Dx: LinkedIn - Dr. Ella Fung | LinkedIn - Dr. Nancy Schoenbrunner | rosalinddx.com
Transcript
More Elephant Intro
[00:00:38] Jason Rudman: Rosalind Dx is a company revolutionizing prenatal care by making genetic testing faster, affordable, and more accessible. The company's goal is to make prenatal testing accessible for all women regardless of socioeconomic background. The solution is a breakthrough approach that brings prenatal testing to polymerase chain reaction or PCR, enabling five times faster turnaround of population level access.
This is a significant step forward in the field of prenatal diagnostics, addressing the historical underfunding and gaps in oversight in women's health, and providing an alternative to traditional prenatal tests like amniocentesis, that can be invasive and risky.
It is a great honor from across the globe to welcome the co-founders of Rosalind Dx, Dr. Ella Fung, who joins us from Singapore, and Dr. Nancy Schoenbrunner in the United States.
Welcome to the latest More Elephant podcast.
[00:01:35] Ella Fung: Thank you for having us.
