Gelena Lifchitz

Gelena Lifchitz is a physician-turned-entrepreneur and investor focused on healthcare technology. She began her medical career as a physician treating patients on air ambulances in the remote regions of Russia, and trained at the Ural State Medical Academy (УрГМА). She later earned a degree from the UCLA School of Public Health and moved into leadership roles within biotech and healthcare-innovation funds, where she combined clinical experience with healthcare-management and business-development expertise.

In her investing capacity she serves as Business Development Director at Torrey Pines Investment, a San Diego specialty life-science investment firm (founded 2012) led by Founding President Ronald Demuth and Managing Member Nikolay Savchuk, Ph.D. The same principals back Teal Ventures LP / TealTech Capital, an early-stage health-technology fund where Lifchitz operates as a partner/principal. In this role she sources and develops point-of-care and telemedicine deals — for example, she was the firm's spokesperson on its 2018 investment in 19Labs (maker of the GALE telehealth platform).

Lifchitz is also a serial founder. She founded Doc+ (a telemedicine venture) and, most recently, Diagenta (founded 2017; formerly branded TealHeal / TealNet MMO), where she is CEO. Diagenta packages low-cost diagnostic devices — remote physical exam tools, on-site blood and urine analysis, basic instrumental exams, and point-of-care ultrasound — into a backpack-sized kit that integrates with telemedicine and electronic-record systems to reach underserved and rural populations. The company operates from San Diego and Sydney and counts Teal Ventures and Torrey Pines Investment among its investors, illustrating how her operating and investing roles reinforce one another.

• Invests through Torrey Pines Investment / Teal Ventures in early-stage health-technology companies — telehealth, point-of-care diagnostics, AI/ML-enabled care, medical devices, SaaS, and "rapid-path" pharma.
• Core conviction in her own words: *"The future of healthcare will inevitably be based on accessible technology that combines flexibility of human care with precision of machine learning and artificial intelligence."*
• Strong bias toward accessibility and underserved/rural populations — affordable, portable, technology-enabled care delivered in the home, workplace, or field rather than the hospital.
• Teal Ventures targets a portfolio that is roughly 50% women-founded or women-led, signaling a stated preference for backing women entrepreneurs.
• Looks for companies that can plug into the firm's platform — e.g., integration with the TealTech "Mobile Medical Office," in-home patient services, and partnership/commercialization support — not just capital.
• Capital is deployed alongside a $60 million TealTech fund (announced 2017) created to finance point-of-care diagnostics, in-home/virtual care delivery models, and AI/deep-learning healthcare support systems.