Dhruv Vig, founder and CEO of Langer Holdings, reveals how legacy investment models are failing to capture health tech's true potential, and why active management with AI-driven curation is revolutionizing healthcare ETFs.
TAMPA BAY, Fla., Sept. 3, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. AI healthcare market is exploding from $8.45 billion in 2024 to a projected $194.88 billion by 2034, yet 86% of healthcare organizations have already adopted some form of AI. (1,2) Despite this massive growth, investors are being systematically shut out from the sector's best performers due to outdated classification systems and passive index structures. Dhruv Vig, founder and CEO of Langer Holdings, joins host Karla Jo Helms (KJ) on Disruption Interruption to expose how legacy ETF models are crushing healthcare innovation returns. "The way we invest in health tech is stuck in the past—legacy indices overlook game-changing companies," warns Vig, whose company launched the first-ever pure play health tech ETF to solve this trillion-dollar problem.
The Wild West of Health Tech Classification
Traditional ETF providers are drowning in what Vig calls "the wild, wild west" of public markets misclassification. Companies gaming the system with healthcare buzzwords are being lumped together with legitimate health tech innovators, creating a mess that passive algorithms cannot untangle. "Everything's misclassified now," explains Vig. "You have companies saying they're healthcare companies, but when you look closer, they're cannabis companies. Cannabis is not healthcare."
The problem runs deeper than simple mislabeling. Vig discovered that genuine health tech companies—those driving 50% of healthcare sector returns during certain periods—are being systematically underweighted in broad market funds. "Companies are being misclassified, and the best performers are often underweighted in broad market funds," he reveals. Of the 6,000 companies globally classified as healthcare, Vig's rigorous analysis found only about 100 actually meet the definition of true health tech: companies deriving 51% of revenue from tech-enabled products or services addressing healthcare pain points.
"You can't trust an algorithm to this," Vig emphasizes. "You have to have experts who can clean up the public markets and set the industry standard."
Active Management: The Future of Precision Investing
Langer Holdings represents a fundamental shift from passive indexing to active, expert-driven curation. Rather than relying on outdated algorithms that scrape news articles for healthcare keywords, Vig assembled an investment committee of healthcare industry experts spanning pharma, devices, diagnostics, clinical practice, hospital management, and insurance. This team evaluates every company against strict criteria, ensuring 100% pure play health tech exposure.
"We're not just building another ETF," Vig explains. "We're setting the industry standard definition for health tech and creating a pure play where investors can trust that all holdings truly belong in this space." The active management approach allows for real-time adjustments as the healthcare landscape evolves, something passive indices fundamentally cannot provide.
According to Deloitte research, active management ETFs currently represent about $1 trillion in assets but are projected to capture $10 trillion in new inflows over the next decade—matching the projected $10 trillion in AI market value creation. "When you sit down and look at your portfolio, do the work. Really ask: what am I investing in and why am I investing in it?" challenges Vig.
Links
Disrupting the ETF Status Quo: How AI Is Rebuilding Health Tech Exposure, with Dhruv Vig
https://omny.fm/shows/disruption-interruption/disrupting-the-etf-status-quo-how-ai-is-rebuilding-health-tech-exposure-with-dhruv-vig
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhruvkvig/
Company website: https://langarfunds.com/
Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/langar-holdings/
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About Dhruv Vig:
Dhruv Vig is redefining how we invest in healthcare innovation. As the founder and CEO of Langar Holdings, he launched the first-ever pure play HealthTech ETF (NYSE: LGHT), giving everyday investors access to the transformative power of AI in healthcare. By merging capital markets expertise with deep sector knowledge, Vig is pioneering a new investment model that fuels the technologies shaping the future of medicine.
Before founding Langar Holdings, Vig held key roles at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), where he built global strategic relationships, published thought leadership, and advised HealthTech companies on buy-side M&A. Earlier in his career, he co-founded Decoded Health, a primary care-focused HealthTech startup, and was part of the SRI Ventures team, helping spin out pioneering companies from Stanford Research Institute.
Vig holds a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona and completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Johns Hopkins in Computational Biophysics, specializing in predictive mathematical modeling. His career reflects a unique blend of scientific expertise, entrepreneurial drive, and investment leadership—bridging healthcare innovation and capital markets to accelerate industry transformation.
About Karla Jo Helms
Karla Jo Helms is the Chief Evangelist and Anti-PR® Strategist for JOTO PR Disruptors™. Karla Jo learned firsthand how unforgiving business can be when millions of dollars are on the line — and how the control of public opinion often determines whether one company is happily chosen, or another is brutally rejected. Being an alumnus of crisis management, Karla Jo has worked with litigation attorneys, private investigators, and the media to help restore companies of goodwill into the good graces of public opinion — Karla Jo operates on the ethic of getting it right the first time, not relying on second chances and doing what it takes to excel. Helms speaks globally on public relations, how the PR industry itself has lost its way, and how, in the right hands, corporations can harness the power of Anti-PR to drive markets and impact market perception.
References
- Towards Healthcare. "U.S. AI in Healthcare Market to Expand at 36.97% CAGR till 2034." Towardshealthcare.com, Towards Healthcare, 21 Aug. 2025, towardshealthcare.com/insights/us-ai-in-healthcare-market-sizing.
- Health Affairs INSIDER. Artificial Intelligence in Health Care. 2025.
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