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At HLTH 2022, a New Chapter for AI [Sponsored]

by Bailey Amber
written by Bailey Amber

machine learning AI

The evolution of machine learning is still in its early stages, but at the HLTH 2022 conference this week, companies shared how they are working to fine tune their approaches to AI. Those efforts included everything from improving the quality of patient data that underpin the algorithms, which has been criticized for not reflecting a diverse enough patient population, to making it easier for healthcare organizations to validate their effectiveness. Health tech companies also highlighted different approaches they are taking to how they work with providers to pilot machine learning algorithms and market them.

Dr. John Halamka, president of Mayo Clinic Platform, used his talk at HLTH to highlight an initiative to assess and reduce bias in patient data to improve the effectiveness of machine learning algorithms. Launched three years ago, Mayo Clinic Platform built an ecosystem to coordinate collaborations with health tech companies to enable innovation in healthcare.

Halamka’s talk on the “algorithmically underserved” noted that currently, when healthcare organizations use an algorithm, they often have no idea whether it performs well or not. The goal of its AI validation platform, Mayo Clinic Platform _ Validate, is to provide clinical validation for machine learning algorithms.

Mayo Clinic Platform is also partnering with other healthcare organizations to set standards and reporting for models as part of The Coalition for Health AI. In addition to Mayo, other founding members include University of California Berkeley, Duke Health, Johns Hopkins University, MITRE, Stanford Medicine, and University of California San Francisco. Industry members include Change Healthcare, Google, Microsoft, and SAS.

Halamka announced that a webinar is planned for December 7, which will offer a preview of plans for a public-private partnership to create a national register to assess the usefulness of a variety of healthcare algorithms.

“We feel we need a national set of assurance standards for algorithms,” Halamka said. The registry will host the metadata for algorithms produced in healthcare.

AI marketplace

Health tech companies are also developing marketplaces to improve the way collaboration partners, such as providers, payers and research groups, select algorithms.

“Data may be the new oil but the data needs to be refined,” said Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health General Partner Jay Goss. One of its portfolio companies, Gradient Health, partners with medical data providers around the globe (generally hospitals and imaging centers) to curate annotated medical images for AI research labs and corporations, so that they don’t have to do one-off deals with hospitals to obtain the data. Companies can search through segmented and labeled studies, or request a custom dataset, spending less time tracking down data and more time developing new tools.

AI hubs

Ferrum Health developed a program to enable health systems to assess machine learning algorithms without exposing their de-identified patient data to a cloud or otherwise forcing them to centralize that data. The company, which is part of the United Healthcare Accelerator 2022 cohort, exhibited on the accelerator’s pavilion.  Ferrum’s approach enables these tests to be done on-premises, behind a firewall, an approach David Miller, Ferrum’s vice president of sales – West, said is designed to de-risk their business for hospitals and health systems. The algorithms in its marketplace are FDA approved.

“We run a test of the algorithms using the hospital’s de-identified patient data to show how they perform for them,” said West. “We let our clients try it before they buy it.”

The company’s four AI Hubs include: oncology, orthopedics, cardiovascular, and breast care.

Reducing physician burnout

DeepScribe exhibited as part of the Plug and Play accelerator’s footprint at the conference. Its automated physician natural language processing software automatically summarizes a physician’s conversation with their patient and auto-populates those notes into EMR fields. Among the EMR companies it works with are athenahealth, dr chrono, AdvancedMD and Claimpower.

Earlier this year, DeepScribe closed a $30 million Series A round to support the company’s growth. The business is designed to negate the need for an in-person medical scribe, saving clinicians money.

The validation approach to algorithms seems like a natural progression in machine learning, similar to the rise of digital health apps followed by the need to validate them to ensure adoption by healthcare organizations skeptical of overhyped tech. It’s a natural progression balancing the interest in machine learning with the recognition that healthcare algorithms are not created equal.

Photo: Hemera Technologies, Getty Images

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Zoom’s impact on intercontinental startup investment

by Bailey Amber
written by Bailey Amber

From left: Ayush Jain of Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund; Ayse McCracken of Ignite Healthcare and INNOVATE Health Ventures; Max Rosett of Research Bridge Partners; and Dr. Hubert Zajicek of Health Wildcatters

When it comes to investment, including healthcare and biotech, companies in the Bay area, Boston and New York tend to get the lion’s share of venture capital. But in recent years there’s been greater attention to investment in companies beyond those regions. The Covid-19 pandemic also played a significant role, as people were forced to limit travel and use Zoom to connect. In a panel discussion at INVEST Digital Health, healthcare and life science investors discussed investment strategies and why they are placing their funding bets in states like Texas, Indiana, Utah and Arkansas.

The panel, Investing between the coasts, moderated by Dr. Hubert Zajicek, CEO, partner and co-founder of Health Wildcatters, offered a window into how investors are finding companies that match their investment theses, even in states that are not thought of as startup hubs. The panel was sponsored by Lyda Hill Philanthropies.

“We were the most active investor in Arkansas last year,” said Ayush Jain, a senior associate with Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. The fund, which was started by Steve Case of AOL fame, has made investments in more than 200 companies in 40 states since 2017.

The video platform Zoom has made an indelible impact towards democratizing investment across the country, according to Ayse McCracken, a founder and board chair with Ignite Healthcare in Houston and president of eNNOVATE Health Ventures. Ignite focuses on women-led digital health and medical device startups, while eNNOVATE invests in a broad array of startups across the continent of Africa.

McCracken said it was one of the unintended consequences of the pandemic.

“[Zoom] has allowed us to connect with entrepreneurs all across the country and all across the world and match them with mentors across the U.S. All of a sudden, we were working with an expanded ecosystem coast to coast, and we were working with startups coming from all across the country. We have eight of the 22 companies [in our latest cohort] that are coming from the Texas market — San Antonio, Austin, Dallas and Houston, which is great. We’d love to see Texas continue to grow. Denver has been another location where we’re seeing a number of entrepreneurs come from, also Minneapolis.”

Max Rosett, a principal with Research Bridge Partners, conceded that Zoom has been useful for connecting with and keeping in touch with portfolio companies in areas that would have otherwise been costly to travel to from his offices in Salt Lake City.

“This is going to sound incredibly trite and yet it’s incredibly real. Now that it’s okay to have board meetings over Zoom, life is much easier,” Rosett said.

Research Bridge Partners, which focuses on life science companies, is trying to chip away at what it refers to on its website as the “geographic misalignment” of venture capital in the Bay area and Boston. It also calls attention to trends among larger venture capital firms of creating lab-to-market systems to advance ideas towards financial liquidity that make it tougher for midcontinent principal investigators to access, because these firms favor  institutional brand and geographical proximity to their offices.

Although everyone is pleased that the worst of the pandemic appears to be over, Zajicek said that in the past two years the accelerator has received a record number of applications from all over the world, which has spurred the development of a hybrid program combining in-person and Zoom-based interactions with startups in its cohorts. It has added an international flavor to its startup portfolio. Add to that the accelerator’s advantageous base in Dallas, in close proximity to an airport with the most direct flights in the country.

“It has flattened the world in non-trivial ways,” Zajicek said.

Health Wildcatters recently moved its offices to Pegasus Park, a 13-floor building that offers lots of space for healthcare and life science startups to work and connect with investors and collaboration partners.

Jain agreed that Zoom can offer a useful complement to in-person meetings and has made it easier to foster relationships with startups. He emphasized the importance of regional startup incubator and accelerator spaces, which frequently host demo days and other events to bring investors and startups together. They can also prove useful for investors from out of town seeking to plug into the regional startup ecosystem.

“If there’s a city that you gravitate towards, whether it’s because of a particular industry strength, or a personal connection, those are factors to leverage when you build relationships in those cities and find deal flow there,” Jain said. “That’s something we lean on a lot. We’re not lead investors. So we rely on finding opportunities to invest in startups, mostly through local regional investors, accelerators, incubators, places like Pegasus Park, where there’s a ton of companies. There’s some institutions in other cities like this. I think finding those and really honing in on them and building relationships is important.”

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Register now for MedCity INVEST April 19-23 where investors and healthcare startups connect

by Bailey Amber
written by Bailey Amber

MedCity News will host its annual INVEST conference online, April 19-23. INVEST is a premier international healthcare investing event hosted in partnership with MHIN, a Midwest healthcare investor organization. The conference brings together active investors and promising startups in biopharma, diagnostics, medical devices, health IT, and health services.

INVEST will address six broad themes through a mix of live and pre-recorded sessions:

  • Public Health and Health Equity
  • Healthcare Delivery
  • Healthcare Investing & Financing
  • Empowering Patients
  • Behavioral Health
  • Employer Health

Among the confirmed speakers so far are:

  • Ellen Herlacher, Principal, LRV Health
  • Dennis Depenbusch, Director, New Ventures, BCBS Kansas
  • Austin Duke, Senior Venture Associate, UnityPoint Health Ventures
  • Christina Farr, Principal, OMERS Ventures
  • Ami Bhatt, MD, Director, Outpatient/TeleCardiology & Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program, Massachusetts General Hospital
  • Harsh Vathsangam, PhD, co-founder and CEO, Moving Analytics
  • Kevin Dedner, Founder and CEO, Hurdle
  • M Daniele Fallin, PhD, Chair, Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  • Morgan Cheatham, Investor, Bessemer Venture Partners
  • Tina Hernandez-Boussard, PhD, Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Surgery, Stanford University School of Medicine
  • Sahil Choudhry, Managing Director, Cigna Ventures & Strategy

Click here to register now

Pitch Perfect Startup Competition

As in previous years, promising startups will get the opportunity to present to investors directly as part of the INVEST Pitch Perfect competition. In order to apply to get selected, startups must fulfill one of the following criteria:

  • Have raised at least $1 million, or
  • Have raised a Series A round, or
  • Have one qualified institutional investor or a strategic investor that they can name

There is no application fee. The deadline for submissions is Feb 28, so please click here to apply now.

Ask the Investor

One new feature of the conference will be intimate sessions to give startups an overview of investment strategies for leading healthcare investors and provide them the opportunity to engage in a Q&A with them. Each session will feature one investor who will outline his or her investment philosophy and area of interest, and 10 startups will be able to participate. Startups who choose to register for this session will be asked to provide company and contact information that will be shared with the presenting investor to facilitate interaction after the session.

Space is limited to 10 startups per meeting. Please register here.

If you are a VC or corporate investor and want to be considered for a judging role, or you’d like to speak on one of our panels at the event, please click here.

To learn about sponsorship opportunities, contact Stephanie Baum, Director of Special Projects, at sbaum@medcitynews.com or email the sales team at advertising@medcitynews.com.

For general information about the conference, contact Laura Kittredge, Director of Events at lkittredge@medcitynews.com.

Illustration: DrAfter123, Getty Images

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MedCity INVEST Ask the Investor spotlight: Ellen Herlacher of LRV Health

by Bailey Amber
written by Bailey Amber

Question mark heap on table concept for confusion,

The MedCity INVEST conference, scheduled for April 19-23, is offering new ways for healthcare startups to connect with investors at the online event. Ask the Investor sessions will provide a way for startups to get insights on investment strategy and to pose questions about funding and more.

Ellen Herlacher Principal, LRV Health, is one of a handful of investors taking part in these sessions. She will be joined by Dennis Depenbusch, Director New Ventures, BCBS Kansas and president of Mid-America Healthcare Investors Network (MHIN) and Austin Duke, Senior Venture Associate, UnityPoint Health Ventures.

Ellen Herlacher, LRVHealth

Although registration to INVEST is free, startups will be asked to pay $99 to participate in Ask the Investor sessions.  Each virtual meeting will include one investor and last for 45 minutes. Following the investor’s presentation on their investment strategy and area of interest, startups will be asked to provide a 1-minute company overview. There will be an opportunity for Q&A. Investors will receive executive summaries for each startup with contact information.

Space is limited to 10 startups per meeting. Please register here.

Herlacher said she decided to participate in the Ask the Investor session in part because the last year has been so tough on entrepreneurs. The lack of in-person meetings in the past year has meant fewer opportunities for them to network and meet potential partners, customer, employees, or investors.

“I can relate because, as an investor, I’ve missed being able to have chance encounters and thoughtful conversations with talented entrepreneurs, too. I’m really looking forward to the Ask the Investor session at INVEST because it will help fill that void a little bit.”

In response to emailed questions, Herlacher noted that LRVHealth is a venture platform that invests exclusively in early stage digital health companies.

“Our investment dollars are 100% strategic, which is to say that our investors are a mix of healthcare systems, payers, and  large healthcare IT vendors. We draw heavily from their perspectives as well as from our collective experiences as healthcare operators to invest in companies that improve the delivery and administration of healthcare and make people healthier.”

Asked what kinds of criteria LRVHealth considers when deciding whether to work with a startup, Herlacher noted that strategic alignment with the investment themes the firm has developed through close counsel with its network, based on their current and future priorities, is the most important consideration.

“On top of that, I also look for thing like quality and aptitude of the team, size of the market and competitive dynamics, business model, and go-to-market strategy.”

Herlacher said healthcare startups should work with LRVHealth because the firm is interested in developing deep and meaningful partnerships that are backed by industry experience and a network of healthcare leaders, decision makers, and buyers.

“We have a track record of success that extends over two decades.”

Photo: bernie_photo, Getty Images

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Register for MedCity INVEST, where healthcare investors and startups meet

by Bailey Amber
written by Bailey Amber

MedCity News will host its annual INVEST conference online, April 19-23. INVEST is a premier international healthcare investing event hosted in partnership with MHIN, a Midwest healthcare investor organization. The conference brings together active investors and promising startups in biopharma, diagnostics, medical devices, health IT, and health services.

INVEST will address six broad themes through a mix of live and pre-recorded sessions:

  • Public Health & Health Equity
  • Healthcare Delivery
  • Healthcare Investing & Financing
  • Empowering Patients
  • Behavioral Health
  • Employer Health

Ask the Investor

Additionally, MedCity News is hosting intimate sessions that will allow startups to understand the investment strategies of leading healthcare investors and give them the opportunity to engage in a Q&A with them. Each session will feature one investor who will outline his or her investment philosophy and area of interest, and 10 startups will be able to participate. Startups who choose to register for this session will be asked to provide company and contact information that will be shared with the presenting investor to facilitate interaction after the session.

Confirmed Speakers (more to be added): Ellen Herlacher, Principal, LRV Health

Pitch Perfect Startup Competition

As in previous years, promising startups will get the opportunity to present to investors directly as part of the INVEST Pitch Perfect competition. In order to apply to get selected, startups must fulfill one of the following criteria:

  • Have raised at least $1 million, or
  • Have raised a Series A round, or
  • Have one qualified institutional investor or a strategic investor that they can name

There is no application fee. The deadline for submissions is January 31, so please click here to apply now.

If you are a VC or corporate investor and want to be considered for a judging role, or you’d like to speak on one of our panels at the event, please click here.

To learn about sponsorship opportunities, contact Stephanie Baum, Director of Special Projects, at sbaum@medcitynews.com or email the sales team at advertising@medcitynews.com.

For general information about the conference, contact Laura Kittredge, Director of Events at lkittredge@medcitynews.com.

Picture: Rawpixel, Getty Images

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Speed, collaboration have been hallmarks of Covid-19 response, CEOs say

by Bailey Amber
written by Bailey Amber

The Covid-19 pandemic may fade but some of the changes it has wrought in the life sciences may – or should – endure, according to two prominent pharma CEOs who spoke during a session Friday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.

For starters, the pandemic has shown how quickly companies and regulators can bring products to market, with tests, vaccines and therapies being studied and approved at record speeds, according to the CEOs, Paul Hudson of Sanofi and Tom Polen of BD.

Companies also have collaborated in ways they would not have contemplated previously. Hudson cited Sanofi’s work with GSK to develop a Covid-19 vaccine. The partnership might once have taken a year to come together but took only 12 days, Hudson said.

“So many times, it was a race against the virus, not a race against each other,” said Hudson, who became Paris-based Sanofi’s CEO in fall 2019 after leaving Novartis.

Regulators have moved at similar speeds, delivering answers in minutes rather than months, Hudson said.

The fast pace stems from the pressure of Covid-19, which has killed two million people around the world and is continuing to spread and mutate. But the sense of urgency could be applied in the future to tackle other diseases, like childhood cancers.

“I think the industry is at its best when it’s purpose-driven with a singular focus,” Hudson said during the JPM session, which was moderated by managing directors at Boston Consulting Group.

Large pharma companies, meanwhile, showed that they could pivot and innovate quickly, despite stereotypes to the contrary. Polen cited BD’s effort to develop a rapid-antigen test for Covid-19. It went from launch to monthly production of 10 million units within six months, said Polen. It normally would take three years.

The speed was a function of setting a clear mandate and a deadline but also doing things differently inside the company, Polen said. While the test was a life science project, for example, BD plucked talent from across the organization to lead the charge.

Another key was empowering and supporting employees so that they were not afraid of taking risks. Early on, the team found a promising antibody, one that is now used in the test, Polen said. The normal progression would be to order a small batch, wait to see if it works and then start ordering batches for commercial production. BD executives assured employees they were OK with ordering the commercial batches up front despite the risk and cost.

“That ended up being a tremendous part of the success equation,” Polen said

The pandemic was not the only force reshaping the industry in 2020. Hudson and Polen discussed the lasting impact they hope to see from the racial justice protests that followed the death last year of George Floyd, an African American, at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

“This year brought a whole new and very much-needed focus on this issue for us as BD,” said Polen, who became CEO of the Franklin Lakes, New Jersey-based company in January 2020.

The company’s leaders have worked to create an environment where employees feel comfortable broaching difficult topics around race, Polen said. “That was a big change this year.”

Harris noted the need to improve diversity among patients in clinical trials but also among the investigators.

For 2021, Harris and Polen expect a sharper competition for talent in the life sciences.

“I think it’s going to escalate after we get out of Covid,” Polen said. But some of the workplace changes wrought by the pandemic could prove useful in the competition. Employees that once might have had to move for a promotion or a new job now can stay where they are and work remotely, an option that could help dual-income families.

Polen and Harris also discussed the growing role in health care for big tech companies like Amazon, Apple and Google. The CEOs painted the tech giants as potential partners rather than rivals. Not only can tech companies help bring products to patients, they also tools to transform pharma’s internal operations.

The challenge ahead lies in preserving the energy, purpose and speed that animated the industry in 2020, Hudson added. “People can quickly fall back into the old routines.”

Photo: Dmitrii_Guzhanin, Getty Images

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What’s coming up at MedCity INVEST Precision Medicine Day 3?

by Bailey Amber
written by Bailey Amber

dna, genomics

The MedCity INVEST Precision Medicine healthcare conference on December 9-11 draws healthcare and life science executives and investors as we spotlight progress in the development of diagnostics, clinical trial innovation, AI in drug development, and reimbursement models for cell and gene therapy.

To view the full agenda, click here.

To register, click here.

10:30 AM–11:30 AM ET: Clinical Trial Design Trends
Remote monitoring for clinical trials has the potential to transform clinical trial design, enabling a more diverse pool of participants, potentially easing recruitment obstacles and help patients fit participation into their lifestyles. How far have we come since Pfizer’s first remote monitoring pilot? Which technologies/use cases are proving effective? What are some of the challenges ahead?

Moderator: Frank Vinluan, Business Journalist
Speakers:
Peyton Howell, EVP and Chief Commercial & Strategy Officer, Parexel
Viraj Narayanan, Vice President, Life Sciences & Strategic Partnerships, COTA
Clay Williams, Founder/CEO, Medaptive Health, Inc.

12:30 –1:30 PM ET: Investment Trends in Precision Medicine
Join us for a discussion on investments year-to-date for health-tech and life science companies and the impact of M&A deals from 2019. How have investment strategies and priorities changed? How do they work with startups/growth stage companies? How are strategic investors changing the investment landscape? What have they learned from investment missteps and successes?

Moderator: Peter Micca, Partner, Deloitte
Speakers:
Julie Grant, General Partner, Canaan 
Jeffrey Low, M.D., Principal, Novo Growth
Christopher McFadden, Managing Director, KKR Credit

2:30–4:00 PM ET

Pitch Perfect: Presentations from Life Science Startups
Life Science companies share different approaches to addressing some of the pain points in healthcare. Each startup with have 4 minutes to pitch followed by 6 minutes of Q&A with the judges.

Biomeme’s end-to-end mobile platform empowers users to take real-time PCR everywhere they need it, from sample collection to data management.

The company started out by creating the first iPhone add-on capable of performing molecular diagnostics. Since its inception, Biomeme has used advanced biology and chemistry along with world-class hardware and software engineering to create elegant solutions to complex problems. Over the years its team has grown, and along the way Biomeme has built the leading mobile molecular diagnostics platform.

CEO: Max Perelman

Headquarters: Philadelphia, PA

EpiVario is a preclinical stage biotechnology company that is developing neuroepigenetic modulators to treat memory related psychiatric disorders. The company’s newly discovered epigenetic regulatory mechanism provides a target for treating memory-related neuropsychiatric disorders, since it plays a critical role in consolidating trauma-induced fear and stress responses, in addition to cue-induced craving that underlies various addiction disorders. Based on this paradigm-shifting finding, EpiVario is developing pharmacotherapeutics to treat anxiety and addiction disorders, including PTSD and alcohol use disorder.

CEO: Thomas Kim

Headquarters: Philadelphia, PA

Gregor Diagnostics is a molecular diagnostics company focused on developing a new screening test for prostate cancer. Prostate cancer screening has been a hotly debated topic over the last two decades because of the overdiagnosis and overtreatment caused by current screening methods. Gregor is developing a better solution that can limit these issues, while still saving men from this deadly disease.

CEO: Tobias Zutz

Headquarters: Madison, WI

SOLUtion is an early-stage life science company developing more patient friendly drug delivery systems for reconstitutable drugs. We specifically aim to improve the administration efficacy of life-saving injectable medication with our TwistJect auto-injector for people living with adrenal insufficiency including Addison’s Disease and Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia.

CEO: Julia Anthony

Headquarters: Philadelphia, PA

Stingray Therapeutics is an immune oncology company leading the charge to bring the next generation of new immune oncology agents forward. Today, all our immune oncology therapeutics are in only one arm of the immune system – adaptive immunity. But the immune system has two major arms that synergistically work together, adaptive and innate immunity. The company’s program in innate immunity inhibits the direct negative regulator of the major pathway, adding innate immunity into the fight against cancer, and has the promise of making immune oncology therapy dramatically more effective.

CEO: Jonathan Northrup

Headquarters: Houston, TX

TrialSpark is a technology company that helps bring treatments to patients faster.

Today, clinical trials are the bottleneck to bringing life-saving treatments to patients. Trials are slow, inefficient, and expensive. TrialSpark believes that it can use technology to accelerate the pace of clinical trials and bridge the gap between medical research and patients who need treatment.

Client Growth Director: Joe Zaccaria

Headquarters: New York, NY

Judges:

Wayne Barz is Chief Investment Officer, Ben Franklin Technology Partners – Northeast PA

Rena Rosenberg is a Partner with Robin Hood Ventures

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Coming up on Day 2 of MedCity INVEST Precision Medicine

by Bailey Amber
written by Bailey Amber

The MedCity INVEST Precision Medicine healthcare conference on December 9-11 draws healthcare and life science executives and investors as we spotlight progress in the development of diagnostics, clinical trial innovation, AI in drug development, and reimbursement models for cell and gene therapy.

To view the full agenda, click here.

Here’s what’s happening on Day 2 of the conference:

10am-11:30am ET Health IT track of the startup pitch competition Pitch Perfect

Each startup will have four minutes to present their companies and six minutes to answer questions from judges.

Backdrop Health, Inc. has created novel machine-learning and AI software that maximizes the value of electronic medical records, enabling a new level of precision predictive medicine. Backdrop’s solution radically extends the established concept of comorbidity (the occurrence of more than one condition in a patient at a time, such as obesity and diabetes). Given any body of medical records our software creates the backdrop for those records. A backdrop is a rich and comprehensive knowledge graph that captures the relationship of every clinical and demographic factor to every other factor. Querying the backdrop can bring massive benefits to clinical trials of new drugs, making it easier for pharmaceutical companies to bring new therapies to market, and to all aspects of personalized medicine, enabling health care providers to preemptively identify health issues and improve patient outcomes. Backdrop Health was launched in 2020 to commercialize this mature technology developed over four years at The University of Utah.

CEO: Jerry Rudisin

Headquarters: Salt Lake City, UT

Destroke is a digital health company developing a mobile app for automated clinical stroke detection.  This app uses speech, face, and motion recognition technologies to detect the signs of stroke, based on the validated NIH stroke scale, and can report these findings to patients, loved ones, telestroke providers, healthcare providers, and EMS.  This app is intended to be used by those at risk for stroke, such as patients who have had a stroke or those with cardiovascular risk factors, as well as healthcare providers who may not have expertise in stroke detection.

CEO: Evan Noch, MD

Headquarters: New York, NY

DrugViu’s digital platform makes medical research more inclusive and accessible by making it easy for diverse people living with autoimmune diseases to contribute their clinical grade data to research and participate in clinical research.

CEO: Kwaku Owusu

Headquarters: New York, NY

Parallel Profile is on a mission to save lives and billions in wasted healthcare spending by preventing adverse drug reactions.

CEO: Cathy Cather

Headquarters: Fort Lauderdale, FL

Siris Medical

Because oncology is so complex, treatments are highly patient-specific, and outcomes are heavily dependent on clinician expertise and experience. This complexity is even more challenging for healthcare payers, which have limited clinical information to judge value for treatment authorization. These challenges can cause treatment delays and subpar care. Siris Medical’s AI-driven decision-support software solves these challenges simultaneously by providing high-quality care insights for clinicians, while automating prior authorization, leveraging a massive, expert library of over 25,000 patient treatments integrated into clinical workflow.

CEO: Colin Carpenter, PhD

Headquarters: Burlingame, CA and Boston, MA

Judges:

Siddarth Sridhar is a corporate development associate with Centene’s global M&A group.

Aron Starosta is VP of Commercialization and New Ventures, University City Science Center.

1-2PM ET Interoperability Progress Report
How far have we progressed with sharing patient medical records? Patient data is key in unlocking riddles of medical science but interoperability is necessary to facilitate this. What companies are making an impact on a regional and national scale? What milestones are on the horizon? What obstacles continue to vex further advancement? How can we make medical records more accessible to patients?

Moderator: Elise Reuter, Senior Reporter, MedCity News
Speakers:
Kevin Chaney, Senior Program Manager, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT
Ida Sim, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
Niko Skievaski, Co-Founder and President, Redox

4–5 PM ET
Venture Cafe Virtual Session: What It Takes To Build A Successful, Regional BioInnovation Hub
Philadelphia is one of many cities seeking to support the continued growth of cell and gene therapy and connected health industries. What do cities need to do to address education, training and other needs to support these sectors? This session will be held as part of Venture Cafe Philadelphia.

sponsored by IBX

Moderator: Michelle Histand, Director of Innovation, Independence Blue Cross
Speakers:
Lisa Dalton, CPO, Spark Therapeutics
Audrey Greenberg, Co-Founder, The Discovery Labs
Tiffany Wilson, President & CEO, University City Science Center

5PM Venture Café Philadelphia Networking Event
Join MedCity News at Venture Café Philadelphia powered by the University City Science Center.

Photo: Getty Images

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Which startups will present at MedCity INVEST Precision Medicine Pitch Perfect?

by Bailey Amber
written by Bailey Amber

Finish line ahead

The MedCity INVEST Precision Medicine healthcare conference on December 9-11 will draw healthcare and life science executives as we spotlight progress in the development of diagnostics, clinical trial innovation, AI in drug development, and reimbursement models for cell and gene therapy. But at the heart of the conference will be startups in health IT and life sciences.

Each startup will have four minutes to present their companies and six minutes to answer questions from judges.  The health IT track will be held on Wednesday, December 10 from 10am-11:30am ET and the life sciences track is scheduled for Friday December 11 from 2:30pm-4pm ET.

Click here to view the agenda. To register, click here.

Here’s a preview of who will be presenting in the Pitch Perfect contest:

Health IT Track

Backdrop Health, Inc. has created novel machine-learning and AI software that maximizes the value of electronic medical records, enabling a new level of precision predictive medicine. Backdrop’s solution radically extends the established concept of comorbidity (the occurrence of more than one condition in a patient at a time, such as obesity and diabetes). Given any body of medical records our software creates the backdrop for those records. A backdrop is a rich and comprehensive knowledge graph that captures the relationship of every clinical and demographic factor to every other factor. Querying the backdrop can bring massive benefits to clinical trials of new drugs, making it easier for pharmaceutical companies to bring new therapies to market, and to all aspects of personalized medicine, enabling health care providers to preemptively identify health issues and improve patient outcomes. Backdrop Health was launched in 2020 to commercialize this mature technology developed over four years at The University of Utah.

CEO: Jerry Rudisin

Headquarters: Salt Lake City, UT

Destroke is a digital health company developing a mobile app for automated clinical stroke detection.  This app uses speech, face, and motion recognition technologies to detect the signs of stroke, based on the validated NIH stroke scale, and can report these findings to patients, loved ones, telestroke providers, healthcare providers, and EMS.  This app is intended to be used by those at risk for stroke, such as patients who have had a stroke or those with cardiovascular risk factors, as well as healthcare providers who may not have expertise in stroke detection.

CEO: Evan Noch, MD

Headquarters: New York, NY

DrugViu’s digital platform makes medical research more inclusive and accessible by making it easy for diverse people living with autoimmune diseases to contribute their clinical grade data to research and participate in clinical research.

CEO: Kwaku Owusu

Headquarters: New York, NY

Parallel Profile is on a mission to save lives and billions in wasted healthcare spending by preventing adverse drug reactions.

CEO: Cathy Cather

Headquarters: Fort Lauderdale, FL

Judges:

Siddarth Sridhar is a corporate development associate with Centene’s global M&A group.

Aron Starosta is VP of Commercialization and New Ventures, University City Science Center.

Life Sciences Track

Biomeme’s end-to-end mobile platform empowers you to take real-time PCR everywhere you need it, from sample collection to data management.

Biomeme started out by creating the first iPhone add-on capable of performing molecular diagnostics. Since our inception, we have used advanced biology and chemistry along with world-class hardware and software engineering to create elegant solutions to complex problems. Over the years our team has grown, and along the way Biomeme has built the leading mobile molecular diagnostics platform.

CEO: Max Perelman

Headquarters: Philadelphia, PA

EpiVario is a preclinical stage biotechnology company that is developing neuroepigenetic modulators to treat memory related psychiatric disorders. Our newly discovered epigenetic regulatory mechanism provides a target for treating memory-related neuropsychiatric disorders, since it plays a critical role in consolidating trauma-induced fear and stress responses, in addition to cue-induced craving that underlies various addiction disorders. Based on this paradigm-shifting finding, EpiVario is developing pharmacotherapeutics to treat anxiety and addiction disorders, including PTSD and alcohol use disorder.

CEO: Thomas Kim

Headquarters: Philadelphia, PA

Gregor Diagnostics is a molecular diagnostics company focused on developing a new screening test for prostate cancer. Prostate cancer screening has been a hotly debated topic over the last two decades because of the overdiagnosis and overtreatment caused by current screening methods. Gregor is developing a better solution that can limit these issues, while still saving men from this deadly disease.

CEO: Tobias Zutz

Headquarters: Madison, WI

SOLUtion is an early-stage life science company developing more patient friendly drug delivery systems for reconstitutable drugs. We specifically aim to improve the administration efficacy of life-saving injectable medication with our TwistJect auto-injector for people living with adrenal insufficiency including Addison’s Disease and Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia.

CEO: Julia Anthony

Headquarters: Philadelphia, PA

Stingray Therapeutics is an immune oncology company leading the charge to bring the next generation of new immune oncology agents forward. Today, all our immune oncology therapeutics are in only one arm of the immune system – adaptive immunity. But the immune system has two major arms that synergistically work together, adaptive and innate immunity. Our program in innate immunity inhibits the direct negative regulator of the major pathway, adding innate immunity into the fight against cancer, and has the promise of making immune oncology therapy dramatically more effective.

CEO: Jonathan Northrup

Headquarters: Houston, TX

TrialSpark is a technology company that helps bring treatments to patients faster.

Today, clinical trials are the bottleneck to bringing life-saving treatments to patients. Trials are slow, inefficient, and expensive. We believe that we can use technology to accelerate the pace of clinical trials and bridge the gap between medical research and patients who need treatment.

Client Growth Director: Joe Zaccaria

Headquarters: New York, NY

Judges:

Wayne Barz is Chief Investment Officer, Ben Franklin Technology Partners – Northeast PA.

Rena Rosenberg is a Partner with Robin Hood Ventures.

Picture: AdrianHillman, Getty Images

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Self Care

Reimagining population health at INVEST Pop Health Virtual: Register today

by Bailey Amber
written by Bailey Amber

The coronavirus pandemic and the toll it has taken on people with chronic conditions has underscored the need to improve population health. For the second successive year, MedCity News is partnering with the New Orleans Business Alliance to host the executive summit INVEST Pop Health Virtual, November 16-18. It focuses on population health and highlights where innovation and investment are occurring in the field.

Instead of a half day in-person event, we are hosting a virtual conference over three days from November 16-18. It will feature life science leaders, providers, payers and startups who are aiming to transform population health with a heavy emphasis on addressing social determinants at a moment of great global public health peril.

You can check out the agenda here. Use the code MCN100 to get a discount when you register.

The event kicks off at 1:30 pm ET (12:35pm CST / 10:35am PST) with a fireside discussion: Diabetes, Covid-19 and the Importance of Social Determinants of Health

The pandemic has made it even more painfully clear how chronic diseases such as diabetes exponentially increase the mortality risk for society’s most vulnerable. Both companies and hospitals have a responsibility to address these. In this conversation, we highlight how a Fortune 500 company and a New Orleans hospital are addressing chronic disease care and social determinants during Covid-19.

Arundhati Parmar, VP & Editor-in-Chief with MedCity News, will moderate. The speakers include:
Takeisha Davis, MD, MPH, CEO, New Orleans East Hospital, and Conrod Kelly, Executive Director, Policy/Government Relations – Social Determinants, Merck.

Day 2, November 17, will feature the panel discussion, Reimagining Population Health, which starts at 1:30pm ET (12:30pm CST / 10:30am PST): 

The United States suffered the heaviest death toll amidst all the nations worldwide, especially compared with those in Asia. There is speculation that underlying health conditions and obesity were contributing factors. As such, population health strategies need to be adopted across the board to improve the overall health of the nation’s citizens. What are the lessons learned and what are effective population health strategies that need to be implemented?

Jennifer L. Avegno M.D., Director, New Orleans Department of Health will moderate. The speakers include:

  • Taylor Justice, Co-Founder and President, Unite Us
  • Phil Oravetz, M.D., ACO Medical Director, Ochsner Health System
  • Steven R. Peskin, M.D., Executive Medical Director Population Health and Transformation, Horizon BCBSNJ
  • Scott Tornek, Chief Strategy Officer, Penn Medicine – Center for Community Health Workers

Photo: Getty Images

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