DR KARIM SANDID · LONDON
Medicine, by design.
Doctor turned product leader, building human-centred, clinically safe health technology.
THE THROUGH-LINE
I've practised the medicine I now design for.
Years of clinical practice, in Paris hospitals, my own clinics and the NHS, sit behind every product decision here. That firsthand experience anchors what my work holds at once: clinical rigour, product craft and regulatory defensibility. Most people own one of those concerns; my work sits deliberately at their intersection.
SELECTED WORK · 2020-2026
01
Numan
The clinical intelligence layer behind safe, personalised care at scale.02Semble
Owning the product roadmap for the clinician experience, clinical decision support and regulatory certifications for an EHR serving nine million patients.03Kuma Health
An AI companion for life with autoimmune disease, taken from zero to product.04Alva Health
Asthma care rethought through human-centred design, from RCA/Imperial research to a live app.Also: evidence strategy and capability building for Roche and Novartis with Prova Health, clinical safety for early-stage ventures, and a 500-person webinar on the future of digital health, co-led with IDEO.
ABOUT
Where medicine, design and technology meet.
French-trained family doctor, London-based product leader. I have practised in hospitals and founded practices, taught design to doctors, and shipped regulated products that reach millions of patients.
Manifesto for the Clinical Design Engineer: a role that doesn't exist yetSUBSTACK · 2026Less is more, especially in healthSUBSTACK · 2026Why Clinical Safety Failures Often Start in Product DecisionsInterview · Clinical Product Thinking · 2026A doctor's unconventional pathMedItThrough podcast · recorded at The Shard, London
A MAP FOR A JOURNEY
Everything connects.
Three disciplines, the skills between them, and the work behind each one. Hover to trace a thread; select anything to see where it leads.Three disciplines, the skills between them, and the work behind each one. Tap anything to see where it leads.
- Medicine, Discipline. I've practised the medicine I now design for. Years of clinical care in Paris hospitals, my own practices and the NHS sit behind every decision on this map. About me
- NHS England, Family doctor · London · 2019-2025. Frontline primary care in London, held alongside product work for six years.
- AP-HP, Resident doctor · Paris · 2011-2015. Rotations across internal medicine, emergency care, rheumatology, geriatrics and more, in the Greater Paris university hospitals.
- MD, Family Medicine, Université Paris Cité · 2003-2014. Medical doctorate, with a thesis awarded the Silver Medal and the highest distinction.
- Design, Discipline. Trained at the Royal College of Art and Imperial, I treat design as the discipline that turns clinical insight into products people trust: research, service design, brand and craft. Selected work
- MRes Healthcare & Design, RCA + Imperial College London · 2020-2022. The joint programme where medicine met design. The thesis became Alva Health.
- Technology, Discipline. From structured clinical data to AI, I build the technical foundations that let care become preventive, personalised and proactive, without losing safety. Selected work
- Clinical safety & risk, Skill. Hazard logs, safety cases, DCB0129 and incident response: defining what safe means for a feature, and the evidence behind that judgement.
- Numan, Senior Clinical Product Lead · 2026-present. The clinical intelligence layer behind safe, personalised care at scale: rules, structured data and emerging AI. Case study
- Semble, Product Manager & Clinical Safety Officer · 2025-2026. The product roadmap for the clinician experience, and the certifications that opened the French market, for an EHR serving nine million patients. Case study
- Early-stage ventures, Clinical Safety Officer & advisor · 2018-2025. Safety and clinical product for early-stage ventures including Entia: DCB0129 and DTAC compliance, risk management and safety cases.
- Clinical Product Thinking, Interview · 2026. Why clinical safety failures often start in product decisions: a feature interview on building clinically safe products. Read the interview
- Patient-safety essays, Articles · semble.io · 2025-2026. Published essays as the voice of clinical safety at Semble, from communication risk to shared responsibility. Six things I’ve learned about patient safety
- Regulatory & SaMD, Skill. Medical-device classification, MHRA pathways and certification at national scale, including HAS v2 prescription safety checks and French e-prescribing.
- Numan, Senior Clinical Product Lead · 2026-present. The clinical intelligence layer behind safe, personalised care at scale: rules, structured data and emerging AI. Case study
- Semble, Product Manager & Clinical Safety Officer · 2025-2026. The product roadmap for the clinician experience, and the certifications that opened the French market, for an EHR serving nine million patients. Case study
- Human-centred design, Skill. Research with patients and clinicians, translated into products: a hundred-plus interviews at Kuma, the Alva thesis, and design methods taught to doctors.
- Kuma Health, Co-founder & CMPO · Zinc VC · 2023-2024. An AI companion for life with autoimmune disease, taken from zero to product: research, brand, clinical strategy and build. Case study
- Alva Health, Design research · Brand · Product · 2020-2023. Asthma care rethought through human-centred design, from RCA and Imperial research to a live app. Case study
- MRes Healthcare & Design, RCA + Imperial College London · 2020-2022. The joint programme where medicine met design. The thesis became Alva Health.
- Health Design Circle, Founder · 2026. Health needs more design. A community for everyone who shapes health, with sessions that borrow from clinical case meetings and design critiques. healthdesigncircle.com
- Manifesto for the Clinical Design Engineer, Essay · Substack · 2026. Coining a role that doesn't exist yet, at the exact intersection this map draws. Read on Substack
- Early essays, Medium · 2018-2021. The early notebook: gamification, design methods, uncertainty, and failing and learning in digital health. karimsandid.medium.com
- Product leadership, Skill. Discovery to delivery on clinically sensitive products: roadmaps, specs, trade-offs written down, and teams aligned across clinical, engineering and design.
- Numan, Senior Clinical Product Lead · 2026-present. The clinical intelligence layer behind safe, personalised care at scale: rules, structured data and emerging AI. Case study
- Semble, Product Manager & Clinical Safety Officer · 2025-2026. The product roadmap for the clinician experience, and the certifications that opened the French market, for an EHR serving nine million patients. Case study
- Kuma Health, Co-founder & CMPO · Zinc VC · 2023-2024. An AI companion for life with autoimmune disease, taken from zero to product: research, brand, clinical strategy and build. Case study
- Clinical data & interoperability, Skill. FHIR, SNOMED CT and structured records: moving clinical information out of free text so systems, and patients, can actually use it.
- Numan, Senior Clinical Product Lead · 2026-present. The clinical intelligence layer behind safe, personalised care at scale: rules, structured data and emerging AI. Case study
- Semble, Product Manager & Clinical Safety Officer · 2025-2026. The product roadmap for the clinician experience, and the certifications that opened the French market, for an EHR serving nine million patients. Case study
- AI in healthcare, Skill. Where machine learning belongs and where it doesn't: personalisation engines, guardrails for AI-generated clinical content, and AI tooling for safety work itself.
- Numan, Senior Clinical Product Lead · 2026-present. The clinical intelligence layer behind safe, personalised care at scale: rules, structured data and emerging AI. Case study
- Kuma Health, Co-founder & CMPO · Zinc VC · 2023-2024. An AI companion for life with autoimmune disease, taken from zero to product: research, brand, clinical strategy and build. Case study
- Design craft, Skill. Brand and visual identity, interface design and the craft of making: logos, palettes, type and websites built from zero for Alva, Kuma and my own practice.
- Kuma Health, Co-founder & CMPO · Zinc VC · 2023-2024. An AI companion for life with autoimmune disease, taken from zero to product: research, brand, clinical strategy and build. Case study
- Alva Health, Design research · Brand · Product · 2020-2023. Asthma care rethought through human-centred design, from RCA and Imperial research to a live app. Case study
- Health Design Circle, Founder · 2026. Health needs more design. A community for everyone who shapes health, with sessions that borrow from clinical case meetings and design critiques. healthdesigncircle.com
- This website, karimsandid.com · Brand, design & code. The site you are exploring: identity, design system and code, all own work.
- Care model design, Skill. Care pathways and service models: two practices built in Paris, a population-health programme funded at 300k euros, and online pathways for digital-first care.
- NHS England, Family doctor · London · 2019-2025. Frontline primary care in London, held alongside product work for six years.
- Two Paris practices, Co-founder, doctor & partner · 2015-2019. Founded, staffed and led two multidisciplinary practices, including ipso santé: more than forty people across both, and a funded population-health programme.
- Teaching & capability building, Skill. Lecturing at Université Paris Cité, design thinking taught to NHS teams, and a capability programme delivered across sixteen countries for pharma.
- Prova Health, Senior Consultant · Roche, Novartis · 2022-2023. Evidence strategy for global life-science clients, a sixteen-country capability programme, and Future of Digital Health, a webinar for five hundred people co-led with IDEO. Advisory work
- MSc Educational Technology, Université Paris Cité · 2017-2018. Where design methods and technology first entered the practice of teaching medicine.
- Lecturing, Université Paris Cité · NHS · 2016-2025. Curriculum on prevention and chronic disease for medical students; design thinking workshops for Kent and Medway NHS teams.
- Venture building, Skill. Zero to one, more than once: practices founded in Paris, an AI venture built through Zinc, and a community that carries the same thesis.
- Kuma Health, Co-founder & CMPO · Zinc VC · 2023-2024. An AI companion for life with autoimmune disease, taken from zero to product: research, brand, clinical strategy and build. Case study
- Two Paris practices, Co-founder, doctor & partner · 2015-2019. Founded, staffed and led two multidisciplinary practices, including ipso santé: more than forty people across both, and a funded population-health programme.
- Health Design Circle, Founder · 2026. Health needs more design. A community for everyone who shapes health, with sessions that borrow from clinical case meetings and design critiques. healthdesigncircle.com
- Writing & speaking, Skill. Making the intersection legible: essays, talks and interviews on clinical safety, design, and where healthcare is heading.
- Prova Health, Senior Consultant · Roche, Novartis · 2022-2023. Evidence strategy for global life-science clients, a sixteen-country capability programme, and Future of Digital Health, a webinar for five hundred people co-led with IDEO. Advisory work
- Manifesto for the Clinical Design Engineer, Essay · Substack · 2026. Coining a role that doesn't exist yet, at the exact intersection this map draws. Read on Substack
- Less is more, especially in health, Essay · Substack · 2026. Why seamless simplicity is so hard, and so necessary, in healthcare and prevention. Read on Substack
- Clinical Product Thinking, Interview · 2026. Why clinical safety failures often start in product decisions: a feature interview on building clinically safe products. Read the interview
- A doctor’s unconventional path, MedItThrough podcast · The Shard, London. A two-hour conversation on medicine, design, entrepreneurship, and being a generalist in a world of specialists. Listen to the episode
- OPUS talk, Talk · 2023. On curiosity, a varied path, and making sense of complexity. Watch the talk
- Patient-safety essays, Articles · semble.io · 2025-2026. Published essays as the voice of clinical safety at Semble, from communication risk to shared responsibility. Six things I’ve learned about patient safety
- Early essays, Medium · 2018-2021. The early notebook: gamification, design methods, uncertainty, and failing and learning in digital health. karimsandid.medium.com
A COMMUNITY
Health needs more design.
In 2026 I founded Health Design Circle, a community for everyone who shapes health: clinicians, designers, researchers, founders and builders. Circle Sessions borrow from clinical case meetings and design critiques to examine health products, services and ideas together.
