After making major inroads among community-based physicians, cardiac inflammation biomarker test company Cleveland HeartLab is looking to expand its business into the health and wellness market.
The Cleveland-based clinical reference laboratory, which provides cardiovascular testing for thousands of U.S. physicians, is now aiming to partner with wellness companies and self-insured employers to diversify its customer base, CEO Jake Orville said.
“We’ve become a recognized leader in the identification and prevention of chronic disease ,” Orville said. “Now we have the ability to focus more on other important markets, such as health and wellness companies.”
Cleveland HeartLab recently hired a business development specialist to focus on potential health and wellness customers.
Most of HeartLab’s customers are primary care physicians who ship blood samples to the company’s Cleveland headquarters. HeartLab’s inflammation tests then signal to doctors whether patients are at risk for heart attack and stroke. The company says its tests are a better predictor than traditional alternatives, such as cholesterol tests, as to whether a patient is at risk for cardiovascular complications.
Last week, HeartLab hit the TEDMED conference in Washington, D.C, to offer its inflammation tests to conference attendees. “We wanted to get our brand out as being synonymous with heart disease prevention,” Orville said.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
HeartLab is one of the shining stars of Cleveland’s burgeoning biomedical scene and has added about 100 employees in just over two years to bring its total to 108. The company launched in late 2009 with eight employees.
Last year, the company moved into a newly constructed headquarters on Cleveland’s East Side (see photo of lab space above), and just prior to that closed an $18 million series B round of investment, which was led by Excel Venture Management and HealthCare Ventures.
