Vheda Health, a digital health company that seeks to help people with chronic conditions, is one of a handful of healthcare startups that have received backing from a commercialization fund from Maryland’s Technology Development Corp. They were part of a list of 15 companies that received $1.5 million. It follows a funding allocation from earlier this year.
The Maryland program allocates funding to companies developing technology products with universities and/or federal labs in the state. To qualify, companies have to be in a collaboration with a federal lab or university, they have to be located in an affiliate incubator company in the state, they have to be involved in one of two Maryland programs — ACTiVATE, an entrepreneurship training program aimed at women, or INNoVATE — or participate in TEDCO’s Rural Business Initiative. The focus is on small businesses so companies must have under 16 employees, or be a university spin-off under five years old or have venture investments under $500,000. More than half of the companies’ employees must work in the state.
Update Vheda’s co-founders Shameet Luhar and Philip Rub previously worked for the payer WellPoint. Their company uses mobile technology as part of an intense intervention program to motivate people with chronic conditions to adhere to care plans through a mix of remote monitoring from biometric devices and visits from a care team. It counts a health plan among its customers and will be doing a study with the Center for Health Information and Decision Sciences at the University of Maryland at College Park. Both founders joined the Maryland Center for Entrepreneurship in January after taking part in the Iron Yard accelerator in South Carolina. This year it became part of StartUp Health Academy, which doesn’t have a specific geographic requirement.
Tutela Industries uses video conferencing and other remote monitoring tools to connect patients, families and critical care staff. One example would be to connect parents to their infant’s bedside in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Maven Medical (not to be confused with a medical supply company of the same name) focuses on clinical decision support for healthcare providers to cut out unnecessary overutilization. It wants to help physicians to understand the economic impact of clinical decisions they make. It also shows the long-term health effects of those decisions with a mix of curated evidence-based research and machine learning.
Mindoula Health wants to redefine behavioral health case management through its behavioral health support to individuals and families.
JPLC Associates develops technology to support radiation therapy. Its Raven QA device measures and records laser, light and radiation and is intended as a way to provide quality assurance in radiation therapy. It licensed the technology from Johns Hopkins University.
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.
Update: The story previously reported that Vheda was doing a study with Johns Hopkins University, which was incorrect. It is working with a health plan.
