If you didn’t get the digital health memo: incubators and accelerators are out, long-term partnerships and mentorships are in.
Or so says Steven Krein, founder and CEO of StartUp Health, which organizes and supports a global army of entrepreneurs and Health Transformers. The company announced Wednesday a new three-year partnership with Janssen, the pharmaceutical arm of Johnson & Johnson, which Krein says validates the long-term mentorship model.
“There is a very visible shift from short-term accelerators and incubators like the 90-day programs that Rock Health or Blueprint Health or Healthbox used to offer. Most of those have gone by the wayside. Most people have realized that model makes no sense,” Krein said in a phone interview.
Five years in, he may have the requisite clout to make bold industry claims.
Krein co-founded StartUp Health with current president Unity Stoakes in 2011. According to the live counter on its website, the ‘movement’ now has 170 digital health startups in its global portfolio, spread throughout 60+ cities. Its wider network of investors, mentors, entrepreneurs and more, collectively known as Health Transformers, numbers 30,000.
“What StartUp Health really represents is a long-term model that is both stage-agnostic and location-agnostic,” Krein 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.
The program differs significantly from traditional incubators, including Janssen’s own initiative JLABS. It’s not built around shared resources and a finite end-point, whereby the startup and its class graduate from the program.
Instead, StartUp Health pitches itself as a global coaching and mentorship system. It follows its portfolio companies indefinitely, checking-in on a quarterly basis in what are known as ‘recalibration’ meetings.
“Everyone understands now that healthcare is a unique animal in terms of its friction, its obstacles, its regulation and its long sales cycles and therefore, a long-term solution is needed.”
Krein said the partnership with Janssen was several years in the making. What was needed was for both sides to align, based on a time and resource commitment that they considered meaningful.
In some ways, Janssen is a new investor-partner (Krein rejected the term ‘sponsor’ but Janssen is paying for the privilege).
In another light, Janssen is joining the program under the umbrella of StartUp Health, working alongside the startups.
“I think everyone is aiming to create a collaborative relationship,” Krein said. “If I was to underscore one thing it would be learning from each other. I think they need to learn from the startups and entrepreneurs and they need to be a contributor to the startups and entrepreneurs as well.”
The transaction involves a number of intangible ideas. First and foremost, is the ‘mindset’ of the entrepreneurs in the StartUp Health system. Krein said Janssen is looking to understand the healthcare transformer mindset and adopt some of that thinking for their own operations. In return, they will be involved in the coaching of the startups, both online and offline.
“What the leadership team is aiming to do at this phase of the partnership is to focus on educating, exposure, insight and data about what’s working, what’s not working. Who’s helpful, who’s not helpful,” said Krein.
That insight is not exclusive, in line with StartUp Health’s policy to connect all individuals and groups that share the transformational digital health mindset. Janssen will join a notable list of investors that reportedly share that mode of thinking, from GE Ventures to Mark Cuban to Aurora Healthcare.
StartUp Health has inspired each with its cult-like language and philosophy. To be fair, it has also delivered a cult-like following of 30,000 healthcare transformers.
More will come and as Krein underscored, more is in the pipeline for its collaboration with Janssen.
Photo: Olivier Le Moal, Getty Images
