Hugo Acurio

At HelixVM, an AI-powered telehealth company, I rebuilt patient intake as human-in-the-loop AI, with a person still in the loop on every case. I broke conversion into a stage-by-stage cascade, with the drop-off and its cause attached at each step, which showed the real constraint was clinical capacity rather than demand. Supply was matched to it with an in-house team sized to peak hours plus a contracted provider network covering off-peak hours and the 51-state licensure gap.

Built the operating system for a founder-led pharma and diagnostics business from zero: the ERP, the quality system, the SOPs and the pharmacovigilance function, run as one system instead of four projects. Used GAP analysis and CAPA methodology to carry it through ARCSA audits to GDP (GWDP) certification with a top 5% score. The same infrastructure supported 50+ product launches across 5 lines in 3 years, through 1,000+ points of sale.

Building Iris LLC's regional pharmacovigilance platform, launching in Iris Global Ecuador under ARCSA's new standard (Nov 4, 2026) and next in Iris Mexico. The design keeps the audit outside the model: every case runs one 7-stage workflow with a human gate before anything reaches the regulator, access is by role, and every action lands in an append-only audit trail and evidence pack. AI is sequenced after go-live, to prepare and suggest, never to decide or sign.

Ran sales and marketing for Omron Healthcare across Latin America and built the go-to-market machine the region was missing: 7 new distributors, a 7,000-point retail network, and DTC channels through digital kiosks and e-commerce, plus a merchandising layer that doubled demand in under 8 months. The result was 300% regional growth and the #1 market ranking.

At HelixVM, an AI-powered telehealth company, I built the patient-operations engine behind its scale-up: intake, scheduling, SOPs, KPI dashboards and the accountability cadences that held each department to its output. The model was built to treat patients within an hour of arrival, so every workflow was sized for speed under volume. The system carried 100K+ patient encounters over about 18 months, with zero supply-constrained shutdowns across the growth window, and IP filed for the workflows.

Put a production AI sales agent on a live, regulated WhatsApp channel for a DTC medical-device line, built on the Claude API and the Odoo ERP behind one middleware that serves as the single point of trust. The model never authors a fact of record: prices, names and dates of birth come from the ERP through tool calls, every action lands in one append-only audit trail, and a human can take over any thread instantly. Thirteen days from idea to production, now covering the channel 24/7.

Spoke at Seton Hall Law's LATAM Healthcare Compliance Certificate Program in Bogotá (Sep 21, 2026) on pharmacovigilance in the age of AI: the reform wave hitting LATAM regulatory and pharmacovigilance teams (ANVISA's VigiMed, ARCSA's new standard, COFEPRIS), and an AI plus audit-trail architecture that keeps compliance readable to a regulator. Attendees received a LATAM PV/TV reform calendar.

Took Iris Global Ecuador from operating losses to sustained profitability: $650K to $850K in profit across four product lines (Pharma, Oncology, POCT and GMate-TriDerma). The discipline behind it: price the whole path to shelf before launching anything, a lesson from a first launch whose 30% paper margin went to zero. The oncology line reached #1 in its sub-indication (our estimate, from public government data), sold on evidence alone. A 23-person team runs it under GDP (GWDP) certification.

Led demand generation, communications and trade marketing for Omron Healthcare across Latin America, managing a $1M+ budget. Built the regional marketing system around one CRM serving four audiences, and used marketing automation to tie campaigns to sell-in and sell-out. Delivered 40 to 50% annual growth and a 20% sell-in/out lift.