Health Podcast Library
Episode 219

Precision Medicine Is (Almost) Here | Tempus AI CEO Eric Lefkosky

Feb 23, 2026
40:51

Episode Description

When Eric Lefkofsky’s wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, it exposed how little technology and data were shaping cancer care, pushing the serial entrepreneur to build a different model.

Lefkofsky is the founder and CEO of Tempus, now a $10B publicy traded health tech company, and previously founded Groupon. At Tempus, he’s building a tech-first company applying multimodal data and AI to make diagnostics smarter and treatment decisions more tailored, starting in oncology and expanding across disease areas.

We cover:

  • What Tempus does in plain English
  • Why Tempus built its own lab, and how it became one of the largest sequencers of cancer patients in the U.S.
  • The hard part: extracting usable clinical data from EHRs and scaling to thousands of hospital connections and hundreds of petabytes of data
  • How AI changes the patient-physician relationship, and why patients will increasingly arrive highly informed
  • What Eric would change at CMS and HHS to responsibly pay for AI

—

About our guest:

Eric Lefkofsky is the founder and CEO at Tempus, a leader in artificial intelligence and precision medicine. He is the co-founder and General Partner of Lightbank, a private venture capital firm specializing in investments in technology companies. He is also the co-founder of Pathos AI, a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on re-engineering drug development; Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN), a global e-commerce marketplace; Mediaocean, a leading provider of integrated media procurement technology; Echo Global Logistics (NASDAQ: ECHO), a technology-enabled transportation and logistics outsourcing firm; and InnerWorkings (NASDAQ: INWK), a global provider of managed print and promotional solutions.

He co-chairs the Lefkofsky Family Foundation with his wife Liz to advance high-impact initiatives that enhance lives in the communities served. Lefkofsky also serves on the board of directors of The Art Institute of Chicago and Northwestern Medicine. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.

—

📍 Connect with us:

Heart of Healthcare website

LinkedIn

Instagram

Youtube


See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Proudly Supported by

Patrons of Health Podcast Library

Achieving Health
AAOS Career Podcast
AAOS Now Podcast
OrthoInfo
Aging Like a Pro
Who the Health Cares? with Prof Michael Sparer
Stronger After Stroke

Supporting Shows

HIT Like a Girl Pod: Empowering Women in Health IT
Healthcare for Humans
Speak Up For Your Health
Cuts and Consults
Faces of Digital Health
This Just In Radio Show
Thriving with Addiction with Dr. Jonathan Avery
Coffee Break: Breaking the Cycle of Bullying in Healthcare, One Cup at a Time
Hopeful Hints
Beyond The Paper Gown Podcast