Sam Glassenberg
Founder and CEO
Level Ex
The Medical Video Game Guru
Could video games cultivate better doctors? With billions of players, of all ages and walks of life, video games are a permanent global phenomenon, yet they are seldom associated with medicine. But the perfect person to change that was Sam Glassenberg.
Sam began his career as an animator at LucasArts creating Star Wars games. He also spent several years at Microsoft, during which his team won a prestigious Technical Emmy. And he was the CEO of the leading independent game publisher in Hollywood, releasing games based on popular films, including The Hunger Games and Mission: Impossible.
After a renowned career creating award-winning games, Sam observed that medicine was using technology 20 years behind the video games industry. He then devoted himself to transforming physician education and began Level Ex, a successful medical video game company. The company’s mobile games boast hyper-realistic anatomy and engaging challenges that elevate physicians’ skills. In a time when it is increasingly difficult to reach physicians, Level Ex apps showcase the latest techniques, medical devices, and drug therapies through physician-focused gameplay. Level Ex has over 350,000 healthcare professionals playing its games.
Level Ex collaborates with top pharma companies to feature their products in their mobile games. In one such partnership, Level Ex incorporated Baxter’s Suprane, an inhaled anesthetic, into their Airway Ex app. The drug was perceived as difficult to dose, so Level Ex created a mini-game to boost physician confidence in dosing Suprane. In only three months, program engagement was higher than the majority of industry marketing initiatives, and Baxter has continued to use Airway Ex to reach physicians at scale in a risk-free environment.
Sam and his team of award-winning game developers and designers are pushing the limits of graphics and game design to recreate nail-biting medical scenarios. In the process, they are attracting hundreds of thousands of healthcare professionals and are being leveraged by top 20 pharmaceutical and medical device companies as well as medical societies.