DreamIt Ventures is kicking off its second health IT accelerator class in Philadelphia with a stronger life sciences theme than last year. More hospitals reviewed candidates this year and the result included four life sciences startups in its nine-member class. They take diverse approaches to the problems they solve — from molecular diagnostics to detect disease earlier to wound management.
It’s an interesting development because healthcare startup accelerators tend to stick to health IT and mobile health companies because it takes a shorter amount of time to develop products, there’s less risk and the path to getting FDA clearance can take a while. Although it’s not interested in therapeutics, DreamIt has definitely been warming up to medical technology that goes beyond health IT. One reason is that molecular diagnostics and 3D printing is increasingly accessible through mobile platforms.
The success of Biomeme last year has helped, too. The smartphone-enabled diagnostics tool has received more than $1 million in seed funding and has a clinical study for sexually transmitted diseases underway at Drexel University of Medicine. Diagnostics are also a hot area for investment because of the value these companies can offer hospitals to potentially speed up diagnosis of certain conditions.
Dr. Elliot Menschik and Karen Griffith Gryga, who run the DreamIt Health program, said it expanded the number of hospitals it worked with to whittle down the chosen companies. Among those that participated were Einstein Health Network, Jefferson, Lancaster General, Penn Medicine and Temple University Hospital.
Penn Medicine and Independence Blue Cross, as well as Johns Hopkins and Kaiser Permanente and Northrop Grumman are among DreamIt Health’s partners.
A couple of startups from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia will also work alongside the DreamIt Health companies through DreamIt’s Open Canvas@CHOP program. Among them are a company developing pediatric medical device technology through 3D printers and Haystack, a health IT company developing a way to help alert hospitals to internal security breaches and protect patient data.
Among the DreamIt Health class members are:
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.
Drop Diagnostics from Philadelphia focuses on molecular diagnostics. Certain conditions are revealed by molecular changes that characterize the disease. The goal is to use a blood test to identify ovarian cancer earlier. But this is only the start of the accelerator class so although it plans to take its lead indication for ovarian cancer through the proof of concept stage, by the time demo day rolls around, the lead indication may have changed. The company is led by engineering graduates from University of Pennsylvania.
RegDesk, a Delaware company that was one of the winners of StartUp Weekend Health, is poised to launch a life science hub that matches up biotechnology and medical device companies with regulatory consultants. The idea is not only to provide advice to help companies navigate the regulatory pathway for FDA approval and device clearance in this country, but also to pair companies with networked consultants who are in a position to provide guidance for regulatory approval in countries outside the U.S.
Tissue Analytics uses image analysis of smartphone photos to remotely manage how wounds are healing. The company hails from Baltimore.
I highlighted 3D bioprinting company BioBots here.
The rest of the companies in the health IT accelerator include:
NarrativeDx uses big data to give hospitals an accurate analysis of customer satisfaction, which can impact Medicare reimbursement. The company, which comes from Austin, Texas, uses several data streams, including social media channels such as Twitter, to find out what people are saying about particular hospitals. They can even go so far as to match up which patients made the positive or negative comments. “It’s about making patients’ voices heard,” said co-founder Senem Guney. The goal is to improve the patient experience in hospitals and to help hospitals maximize Medicare reimbursement.
FlexiSched has a patient scheduling analysis tool to do a better job of predicting no-shows, and analyze practice productivity. It is based in Philadelphia.
TowerView Health’s founders assembled in Philadelphia from Chicago, Houston, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. It developed medication adherence technology for more complex, expensive medication, particularly for cancer.
TrueClaim’s technology targets up-coding and fraud in health care claims submissions.
Ristcall is an innovative twist on the nurse call button. It’s designed to make it easier for patients to call for a nurse from a wristband. But it also provides analysis of how long it takes nurses to respond to patients and the quality of those interactions. The company hails from Pittsburgh.
