2019, Vol.7, Issue-1
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BEST HEALTHCARE
STARTUPS
TO WATCH FOR 2019
ArtiďŹ cial Intelligence: A Gateway to Enhanced Healthcare
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ouldn’t it be amazing if you are reminded of your medications by a virtual assisting nurse or the virtual assistant, a helper aiding you in your daily routine? Today, this is easily achieved by implementing AI and robotics. While AI is booming across various industries, in healthcare, its huge impact promises to be genuinely life-transforming. Right from clinical research to hospital care, insurance and drug development, healthcare is undergoing a paradigm shift with AI and has evolved to reduce expenditure and improving patient outcomes. One of AI’s biggest potential benefits is to assist people stay healthy so they don’t need a doctor, not at least as often as they might be visiting already. Technology applications and apps not only encourage healthier behavior in individuals but put consumers in control of own well-being. With AI, the healthcare professionals are gaining a deep understanding of the day-to-day patterns and needs of the people at the tip of their fingers, which in turn provides better feedback, guidance, and support for staying healthy. This advanced technology is already being used to detect major diseases, like cancer, more precisely and that too, in the early stages. Adding to this/Additionally, the implementation of AI is enabling review and translation of mammograms with over thirty times faster with 99% accuracy, hence reducing the need for biopsies. The advancement doesn’t stop here. The medical devices and consumer wearable with the AI touch can be used to manage an early-stage heart disease allowing doctors to monitor and rectify potentially life-threatening diseases at an early stage. By observing the whole scenario, there is no doubt, that AI holds huge potential to transform end of life care. Thus, it helps others remain independent for longer without the need for hospitalization. AI combined with the advancements in humanoid design are enabling robots to cross the borders of ‘communications’ and other social interactions with people to keep the old minds sharp.
CONTENTS 14
CXO Standpoint
ARTICLE
20
Tech-spotlight
Tech-trend
Empowering Patients through Technology
5 cutting-edge trends of Healthcare Startups
10 Acorn Biolabs Helping People Live a Longer Healthier Tomorrow
16 BabyMed Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies
22 Biome Analytics Clinical Performance Solutions for High-performing Cardiovascular Centers
26 Conversa Health Enhancing Communication, Building Relationships, and Revamping the Care Experience
30 Micrima A Leading Organization Developing Technology for Breast Cancer Screening
34 Nemaura Pharma Oering Precise Userfriendly Skin-based Drug Delivery Technologies
38 Transformative AI Revolutionizing Healthcare with Deep Learning
Best
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STARTUPS TO WATCH FOR 2019
Dynamic Startups Re-transforming Healthcare Space
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he ability of advanced technologies in solving a wide range of issues for patients, hospitals, and the healthcare industry is the impulse behind its sudden rising implementation in healthcare. However, healthcare providers often get stuck in few ambiguous situations regarding the enhancement of patient care, helping people in this competitive world, along with providing cost-effective solutions.
Considering these issues, most of the organizations are implementing advanced technology. These organizations are increasingly looking towards evolved real-time analytics such as AI and Machine Learning to cover the processing and data delivery. Implementation of real-time analytics assists physicians to detect and rectify diseases quickly, reducing time-to-time treatment and care costs. This eventually leads to better patient care and outcomes. With this regard, we have come up with ‘Best Healthcare Startups to Watch for 2019’ issue in which we have introduced the leading organizations that are spearheading the healthcare field with their innovative services and solutions. In our issue ‘Best Healthcare Startups to Watch for 2019’, we have introduced the leading and dynamic startups that are spearheading the healthcare space with their astounding services and solutions. We have presented, Acorn Biolabs, a healthcare technology company focused on delivering easy, affordable and non-invasive live cell collection, analysis and cryopreservation service; BabyMed which is an integrated and innovative mobile health platform that provides easy and affordable access to reliable maternal and child health care information and services; Biome Analytics which offers cardiovascular performance solutions that combine machine learning technologies with human-driven insights to improve clinical and financial performance; Conversa Health which is a clinically-intelligent conversation platform helps healthcare organizations deliver smart, automated, patient conversation experiences that are patient profile driven and lead to more meaningful patient relationships, better population management, improved care coordination, and quality outcomes; Micrima, the leading company that helps to detect breast cancer at an early stage with its innovative product; Nemaura Medical, a private pharmaceutical company that offers apt, reliable, and minimally invasive skin-based drug delivery technologies; Transformative AI which is the leading start-up that blends AI and novel analysis techniques employed at CERN and provides distinctive solutions to the clients; Soul Insole whose bio-mechanically designed shape of the Shoe Bubble effectively redistributes pressure evenly across the foot to relieve pressure from the heel and forefoot; Neurotrack that uses clinically proven science to help you assess and improve your memory over time; and Lucidium Health which enhances Healthcare for people at large through improving the current research processes by using AI-enabled, secure and intuitive platform to connect individuals & research organizations. We have also encompassed CXO article ‘Empowering Patients through Technology’ written by Dimas Francisco Silva Jr, Medcloud Founder and CEO. Our in-house editors have also scripted amazing article on ‘5 Cutting-edge Trends of Healthcare’ which would shed some light on tech-advancements. So, flip through the pages of the magazine and enjoy the journeys of Startups!
Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Senior Editor Anish Miller Managing Editor Ashwini S. Deshpande Executive Editor Stella Andrew Contributing Editors Aishwarya, Shambhavi Visualiser David King Art & Design Head Amol Kamble Art & Design Assistant Poonam Mahajan Co-designer Paul Belin Art & Picture Editor Savita Pandav Business Development Manager Peter Collins Marketing Manager Marry D'Souza Business Development Executive Mark Williams Sales Executives John, Amy, Bill, Sarah Technical Head Jacob Smile Assistant Technical Head Pratiksha Patil Technical Consultants David, Robert Digital Marketing Manager Alina Sege Assistant Digital Marketing Manager Prashant Chevale SME-SMO Executives Manoj, Gemson, Uma Research Analyst Eric Smith Circulation Manager Tanaji
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BIOLABS: HELPING PEOPLE LIVE A LONGER HEALTHIER TOMORROW
Dr. Drew Taylor CEO & Co-founder
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Best
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corn Biolabs is a healthcare technology company focused on giving every human being the best chance to experience more healthy years with its easy, affordable and non-invasive live cell collection, analysis, and cryopreservation service. Acorn provides a live cell collection service and a subscription storage model that keeps consumer’s live cells cryopreserved as a healthcare resource for as long as they need it. Preserving live cells also unlocks a vast world of data and genetics on an ongoing basis so that consumers have in Acorn a healthcare partner for life. Acorn also offers live cell collection, cryopreservation and genetic analysis services. Why Acorn Biolabs? • Acorn Freezes the Clock On Your Cells. The urgency around collecting, preserving and storing youthful cells for future use is real and freezing the clock on your cells today will ensure you can leverage them later when you need them most. Acorn preserves your youngest, best cells today to ready you for the future of regenerative medicine tomorrow. • Acorn Unlocks the Future of Regenerative Medicine for Everyone. Till now, stem cell collection has been expensive, invasive and painful through bone marrow harvesting, liposuction, blood draws and umbilical cord banking. More recent DNA home testing kits only captured dead cells from saliva that are unusable in cell therapy. Acorn gives a live cell collection that is accessible, affordable and viable for regenerative medicine through the simple non-invasive plucking of a few hairs from your head. This makes the future of regenerative medicine, genetics and powerful stem cell therapy accessible to everyone. About the Passionate and Sporty Leader Dr. Drew Taylor is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Acorn Biolabs. Being a Biologist and a former professional athlete, Drew has charted his path across molecular cell biology, science and baseball with steadfast passion over his career. He completed an undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of Michigan and a Masters from the same school in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. He also holds a PhD with the University of Toronto in Biomedical Engineering. Drew has enjoyed a successful career in professional minor league
HEALTHCARE
STARTUPS TO WATCH FOR 2019
baseball as a pitcher for both the Toronto Blue Jays and the Philadelphia Phillies, charting parallel paths across both professional sports and science. Prior to joining Acorn, Drew spent several years as Chief Science Officer at Epic Capital Management working across the flourishing biotech start-up community. Also, prior to that he was a part of the Mount Sinai Hospital Bioengineering of Skeletal Tissues Team. He has been widely published across international medical journals with specific focus on tissue engineering and sports medicine. Story behind the Inception It all started when Dr. Drew met Steven Ten Holder and Patrick Pumputis, the other Co-founders of Acorn Biolabs, while Drew was the Chief Science Officer with Epic Capital. Prior to Epic Capital he had been involved with a medical team researching using cell therapy and regenerative medicine for orthopedics. Seeing first-hand how older cells were not as successful as younger cells in replacing cartilage led him to feel there had to be a solution. Meeting Patrick and Steven in many ways felt very much like serendipity as they compared notes. Together they quickly realized that Steven, who had been researching cell division and how technology could be leveraged in longevity; combined with Patrick’s research focus on cell nutrition and preservation; with Drew’s background in emerging health technologies and medical cell therapy. It was all together was a winning combination to create something that could truly change the way people thought about personal healthcare. Major Challenges on the Road The regenerative medicine space and all the advancements around CRISPR, iPSCs, genomics and cell and gene therapy is complicated. Also, consumers haven’t really gotten their head fully around the magnitude of the impact these advancements are going to have in their lifetime. Acorn is more concerned about the fast-evolving science which is moving faster than consumer understanding of the value of their cells. The company believes that one day science will have fully commercialized cell and gene therapy and there will be generations of consumers too old to benefit. “Acorn has a significant role to play in educating on this space and preparing people for the future. No one thought that today we would be planning for self-driving cars, or
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Consumers trust us with their cells which as scientists we believe are an invaluable resource that will unlock the future their personalized healthcare
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EMPOWERING Patients through Technology T
he growing use of communication applications has facilitated the adherence not only of technology focused on social interactions. Health professionals are much more familiar with the use of technology in medical practice. Specialized health applications and platforms now take advantage of a global digital model that has come to stay. For some years, information technology managers were asked about the adherence of health professionals in the implementation of new projects involving technology. Now, through a much more favorable scenario, managers and administrators of clinics and hospitals make much safer and more favorable decisions to such projects. Terms like “Instagram of Medicine” and “Facebook of Physicians” are increasing. Proximity to such applications provides familiarity with an already consolidated interaction and navigation model, preserved in due proportions.
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The forecasts for the area of technology for health, reaffirm once again an increasingly favorable scenario for engagement and collaboration, through the management and sharing of medical data and records.
makers in their care tend to be healthier and have better outcomes. By patient’s journey we understand the whole process that involves from the moment the patient perceives some symptom or something different in his body, until the completion of the care.
Smartphones and tablets tend to be more and more essential tools in everyday life when it comes to health thanks to applications that provide new ways of accessing information and practicing medicine.
Although the patient’s journey corresponds to all the experience he has from beginning to end in his clinic, the post consultation period ends up being an essential pillar in the construction of this experience. This is because it is at this moment that the patient is able to evaluate the way it has been treated, even analyzing the possibility of a return if he or she needs care in the future.
With the consolidation of the use of technology as a tool in daily medical practice, clinics and laboratories specialized in diagnostics have a unique opportunity for relationship and communication with their patients, allied to the best and most favorable moment for the use of technology in the health area. Patient-centered Care Patients wish to get involved in their health decision-making process, and those who are involved as decision
By following the patient’s journey, you need to think of a model that meets your individual needs and expectations. Therefore, it is possible to understand the need for customization, since no patient is the same as the other.
Tech-spotlight
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dimas Francisco Silva Jr, Medcloud Founder and CEO, a Health entrepreneur, believes in the power of centralized data for decentralized care. He has mission to accelerate the transition of imaging centers to the Cloud and is passionate about Patient Experience, A.I and Medical Networks. Medcloud is an All-In-One platform for diagnostics management, EHR RIS, DICOM Viewer, Drive Storage, Portal of Diagnostics, 100% Web frrom Diagnostic Imaging Centers, Telemedicine projects, and Dental Companies to Cardiology Centers. A common challenge is managing the information of patients and their exams, in a secure and reliable way. More than just increasing productivity, Medcloud offers timely and uncomplicated solutions for the entire life cycle in healthcare data management.
Dimas Francisco Silva Jr Founder and CEO
Chronic patients, for example, face somewhat different journeys. By necessity of monitoring, these people need to have a much greater control of their medical information.
their audience, facilitating the Physician-Patient relationship, since such devices have revolutionized the way we communicate.
appointments and exams, sending some documents, and small tasks that facilitates their daily lives, approaches the patient.
Someone who needs to visit their doctor regularly, gets stuck to numerous images and physical reports. When a diagnostic center offers other options, such as outcome portals or applications for storing these exams, it engages its patients.
It is also important to consider the whole group of family and friends around the patient. Often, the caregiver is not active. So there is the concept of engaging people to consider everyone around the patient and take a more active role. It is important to include all these subjects.
Technology plays a key role in strengthening the doctor-patient relationship. Providing channels of communication and more practical ways for the patient to be able to ask questions or, eventually, to ask for help from their specialists also puts the patient in a more active role.
A person who goes from a reality of having to organize, store and carry to having all the information gathered from a click gains empowerment. By fostering digital services that take advantage of new, mobile Internet access, providers are beyond engaging
By bringing the diagnostic industry closer to the digital trends of the market, mobile devices like smarthphones and tablets appear as the first choice of relationship. In addition, offer even more options to put the patient in control, such as scheduling
Leave the patient in the position of control of their own health. Giving flexibility, convenience and practicality in the age of the internet and mobile devices is not a differential, it is the minimum that any clinic or hospital can offer its clients.
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BabyMed Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies
The major aim of BabyMed is to empower pregnant women and their partners to take the steps necessary for a healthy pregnancy and safe delivery. The SMS text and voice messaging service integrates all the healthy pregnancy and safe motherhood topics under one platform. This includes early and complete ANC attendance, malaria prevention, the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV (PMTCT), individual birth planning, and safe delivery. Outstanding Mission In African nations (Kenya in particular), 6000 women die every year due to preventable pregnancy or childbirth problems. The doctor to patient ratio in Kenya is 1:17,000 (WHO recommends 1:1000). Due to a lack of collective community knowledge for safe and healthy pregnancy and 75% of the Kenya population living in the rural areas, pregnant women and mothers may delay seeking care or taking appropriate preventative or curative action. To resolve this situation, BabyMed is on a mission to save the lives of the 6000 pregnant women, guardians of young children, and women of child-bearing age who die every day in Kenya due to preventable pregnancy or childbirth problems. About the Compassionate Leader Bryan Okello, the Founder/CEO is a highly motivated, passionate, and result oriented professional. He has a keen interest on engaging, developing, and impacting communities through information communication technologies to deliver highly effective and creative solutions to business and
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We wish to create a world
where no woman should die
while bringing life to this world and every child born should
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B
abyMed is an integrated and innovative mobile health platform that provides easy and affordable access to reliable maternal and child health care information and services. The platform provides important weekly health messages to pregnant women, mothers with newborn babies, and their family members. It comprises of SMS text messages, voice messages, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) on web information portal.
grow to realize its full potential
technology challenges. Bryan has been in accounting, finance and business information technology, hands-on software training, and web development for more than ten years. Bryan is passionate about transforming maternal and child health care in Kenya and in Africa through the utilization of mobile and digital technology. His inspiration for coming up with BabyMed is the desire to see a world where no woman should die while bringing life to this world and every child born should grow to realize its full potential. Uniqueness at its Best BabyMed provides age and stage-based messages aligned with global best practices, empowering women to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. The company leverages the high number of mobile devices to inform and empower mothers to adopt healthy behaviors and to access maternal and child health services. With increased access to high quality, relevant local health information, mothers and families would demonstrate improved health-seeking and preventative behaviors, including uptake of antenatal care, early care-seeking in response to childhood illness, hand washing, cord care, etc., that should ultimately contribute to improved maternal and child survival. Besides, BabyMed’s SMS and audio messages are targeted to a woman’s stage of pregnancy or the age of her child so that
Best
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STARTUPS TO WATCH FOR 2019
Bryan Okello Founder & CEO
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the information reflects exactly what she is experiencing at a particular time. This helps to build an emotional connection with the mother and a sense of trust, making it more likely that she will be receptive to messages that encourage changes in behavior. The messaging program accompanies each mother on her journey of learning and discovery and acts as a step-bystep guide to a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. BabyMed provides ICT consultancy, innovative solutions for the education sector, and web design and development. Talking about social activities, the company conducts Twitter chats on maternal and child health issues and also organizes marathons (Beyond Zero marathon) and walks targeted at highlighting maternal and child health mortality. Not only this, but BabyMed also advocates and promotes exclusive breastfeeding for children aged 0-6 months. Awards and Recognitions • Top application in the health category in the Safari.com app developer challenge • Top Ten Finalist in the Women & Access to Health Call for Initiatives! In April 2019, Bryan Okello was shortlisted as one of the top ten finalists (the only finalist from Africa) in Women & Access to Health Call for Initiatives! Organized by the Women’s Forum. • Publication of BabyMed’s story in the StartUp Health Magazine • Partnership with StartUp Health. In June 2016, BabyMed was selected by StartUp Health to join its Portfolio of Digital Health Companies working to transform Health Care with Bryan Okello becoming the First Healthcare Transformer from Africa to join the academy. This was a very important milestone for the company because guidance from StartUp Health and access to its networks will be crucial in accelerating our growth. StartUp Health is leading a global movement to transform health by organizing and investing in the world’s largest community of Healthcare Transformers. With the coaching, support and promotion from StartUp Health Academy, BabyMed is now well placed to transform maternal and child health care in Kenya.
Three-piece Advice BabyMed advices the budding entrepreneurs in the healthcare space to Anticipate Potential Snags i.e. every meeting is an opportunity to develop and grow. No doubt, there will be some mistakes along the way, but if they can’t be avoided, one
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should remember that learning is a continuous process. Secondly, it suggests to Think Small, At First. As the world of healthcare is very much regimented, innovation may be something completely world-changing in time, but at first, one should focus on getting it adopted on a small-scale basis where its effectiveness can be proven. Lastly, it recommends to Get Out There because the company believes that spending as much possible time in the exact environment the product will be used in, will give an idea of the nuances and potential issues that will come with its use. Strategic Plan for a Glorious Future • Sign up one million users • Translation of messages to local languages such as Kiswahili, Kikuyu, Luo, Kamba, Kalenjin • Set up BabyMed Social: An interactive social network where mothers can read articles and have a conversation with their peers • Set up BabyMed on USSD in order to offer weekly two interactive quizzes tailored to mothers’ gestational stage or the age of their baby • Expand to other east African countries such as Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda. Institute a monthly block knowledge sharing sessions that bring together all expectant mothers registered at a facility for information sharing in a group. • Set up Maternal Health Corners with partnering health facilities made up of a set of computers that have been programmed with content (audio, video, and text) for the benefit of health workers What’s next in the Store? BabyMed would be launching its android mobile app as well as its redesigned website. The company would be signing up partnership agreement with Uridu.org. URIDU is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers rural women in developing and emerging countries. Also, discussions are a in an advanced stage to partner with ‘Africa’s Talking’ to facilitate scale up of its mobile service to all parts of Kenya.
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STARTUPS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AI in medical technologies is doing miracles in the healthcare industry. It can easily process huge data, help in diagnosis and provide accurate results. AI comes handy as it speeds up the research and analysis of various processes including drug discovery and gene c modifica ons.
IOMT Internet of Medical Things or in common language health wearables are booming all over the world. Due to its effec veness towards keeping oneself fit, it has been on the top for a long me now. The most beneficial part of IoMT is it can be connected through various mobile apps.
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Tech-trend
TELEHEALTH With evolving technology, healthcare has moved on as well. With the help of various techniques, it has now become possible for doctors, hospitals to provide treatment to pa ents remotely.
DATA ANALYSIS Data analysis is nothing but a digital organizer that will also perform analysis processes like health records, lab results, medical history, diagnosis history, and many more. It has been saving precious me and manpower.
VR/AR Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality has already taken over the technologies of all the sectors. But, speciďŹ cally, speaking about healthcare, it has been doing wonders. From diagnosis to medical educa on, VR and AR have helped this sector ourish. It has been said to be useful in providing treatment to a wide range of illness.
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Biome Analytics Clinical Performance Solutions for High-performing Cardiovascular Centers
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In 2013, a team of data scientists, engineers, and clinical experts came together. They all had a common goal of providing doctors and hospitals with the granular insights necessary for improving care and lowering costs for over 27 million Americans with heart and vascular disease. Stuart Jacobson, the CEO of Biome Analytics, founded the company believing that if a common fact base for performance management existed, doctors and hospitals would self-optimize in delivering high-performance cardiovascular care and excellent quality clinical care at the lowest possible cost. “We specialize because cardiovascular care is unique, sometimes variation makes sense, and generalized tools and analytics have failed to engage and align clinicians,” says Stuart.
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Our unique solutions combine advanced analytic techniques with humandriven insights to help hospitals and doctors at leading heart centers be their best
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ardiovascular disease affects over 11% of the US population and is the leading cause of death for both men and women. Hospitals and doctors treating these patients face unprecedented challenges driven by increasing volume, disruptive new procedures, greater competition, and the transition to value-based care. Successfully confronting and succeeding over these challenges require providing clinical and administrative teams access to trusted data and clinically and financially relevant insights. But, because cardiovascular care is highly nuanced, one-size-fits-all analytic solutions lack the precision required to engage clinicians and cannot show users how to improve. Internal analytic teams are stretched thin, lacking deep expertise in the cardiovascular and cost accounting domains, and struggle to stay au fait with changing standards of care, best practice guidelines, and reimbursement models. In an effort to help providers and administrators solve these issues, Biome Analytics was formed.
What does Biome do? Founded in San Francisco, California, Biome Analytics is a cutting-edge leader in the digital healthcare space. The company delivers a new generation of clinical performance applications that bring hospitals and doctors together around a trusted data source, clinically relevant benchmarks, and actionable insight. The company was established with the guiding principle- ‘Every clinician wants to deliver the best possible care’. Secondly, it also believes that ‘When the clinicians have trusted, actionable insights, they will self-optimize.’
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Stuart Jacobson CEO
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Biome provides the ability to the hospitals and doctors to seamlessly align around how to , eliminating expensive guesswork around what specific actions will move the cost needle, and providing clinicians the tool they need to show exactly when care variation is necessary Why Biome? • Intelligent Variation Biome has procedure-specific performance models that seamlessly integrate hospital cost accounting and clinical data. Its algorithm-based performance assessment engine detects high-value clinical and financial opportunities for clients. Biome delivers a community-driven performance library, containing clinical and financial benchmarks, models, and performance improvement strategies. • Cardiovascular Focus and Expertise Biome’s applications enable hospitals to increase contribution margins throughout the cardiovascular service line. Clients rely on Biome’s experience to evaluate the impact of evolving therapies, identify vendor opportunities, and quicken time to value. Some recent client successes include: • $2 million cost savings opportunities identified within 60 days • Average TAVR LOS reduced by 3 days • Net-new 164 bed opening availability • $1.7 million in cost misallocation identified • Observed vs. Expected Mortality Decreased by 35.7% • A Delivery Model Built for Speed and Quality While analytic applications largely focus on IT departments as the primary user, Biome focuses on delivering analytic capabilities to the physicians and administrators, without requiring users to become data scientists. Additionally, Biome manages the full engagement- from requesting and collecting data, to creating the models, to delivering the insights. Users can ask questions and get answers in record time. Finally, with access to a library of over 200+ cardiovascular-specific analytics, clients can explore a myriad of improvement opportunities in seconds, instead of waiting for weeks for the internal teams to create a new analytic.
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Biome’s Unique Solution Biome offers an end-to-end solution for cardiovascular performance management; over 200 cardiovascular-specific analytics that drives the insight into actionable root-cause performance improvement opportunities. Analytic access is provided to users via Tableau visualizations, and Biome’s engagement team highlights high-value opportunities, besides delivering insights into performance change management progress. Biome approaches engagements with the philosophy that analytics should augment the work of cardiovascular teams, not replace physicians’ decisionmaking autonomy. Biome provides the analytics that allows physicians to understand the cost impacts of decisions and the case studies and change management methodologies for affecting performance improvement at client facilities. Biome delivers performance bench-marking so that cardiovascular teams can measure progress both internally and against other cardiovascular centers. Advice to Digital Health Entrepreneurs Today, as healthcare decision-making becomes much more nuanced and complex, Biome advises the budding entrepreneurs in this field to stay focused and have an unwavering vision. The company believes that healthcare is a ‘team sport’ and each participant in the industry, whether an entrepreneur, clinician, administrator, or patient, rely on the others to achieve success. It also believes that collaboration and communication are crucial to a successful team and these capabilities bind the team with motivation and positive approach. Looking Forward Biome’s distinctiveness is a breakthrough value-add for cardiovascular teams providing noticeable clinical and financial impact. Clients have appreciated the company’s responsive services and analytic solutions. Talking about the accolades received by the company so far, Stuart asserts, “Our happy clients are our greatest award—when we see the success that they achieve as a result of our solution, we are motivated to develop even more models to improve cardiovascular performance.” Biome Analytics is focused on developing solution modules in cardiovascular-related clinical areas such as stroke, vascular, and neurology and is planning to roll these out to all clients this year.
Conversa Health Enhancing Communication, Building Relationships, and Revamping the Care Experience
Conversa is transforming healthcare from episodic experiences to a continuous and personalized relationship. By personalizing and automating care communication, it envisions to make conversation a cornerstone of the healthcare experience. Proven Experience and Passion West Shell III, CEO and Co-founder of Conversa, has been a catalyst to the company’s fast-paced growth. A 5-time start-up CEO and the son of a real-estate entrepreneur, Shell is a creative and enthusiastic leader. He has a background in business strategy and an impressive track record of building high growth, innovative companies with world-class employees and
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Conversa enables healthcare organizations to monitor, manage and communicate with their patients more effectively at scale than ever before
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M
eaningful doctor-patient communication is central to effective patient care management. Not only does this enhance the patient experience, it also helps encourage the patient to be a more collaborative partner in their care. Today’s patients expect transparent and timely flow of information, for themselves as well as their loved ones. Developing a personal and compassionate relationship with patients has been a crucial role to play in the success of healthcare providers. Conversa Health, an emerging digital healthcare company, helps make the process of building long-lasting relationships with the patients easy through its innovative technology - The Conversa Conversation Platform™.
committed customers. His extensive experience marks him unique in the crowd of digital health innovators, and has helped him accelerate the company’s growth. With his business acumen and expertise, Shell raised sufficient funds from the right sources, partnered with the right people, and is leading Conversa’s path of success. Conversa is the brainchild of Shell and his partner Dr. Philip Marshall, the Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of the company. Although these two are the creators of the company, Conversa owes its success to a few prominent team members: Chris Edwards, the
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West Shell III, CEO & Co-founder
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Chief Client Experience & Marketing Officer, Murray Brozinsky, the Chief Strategy Officer, Becky James, Vice President of Operations, and Todd Grant, Vice President of Finance and HR. This is a unique group of dedicated healthcare professionals and technologists who are passionate about transforming the healthcare experience through automated, personalized patient conversations. Where it all started? Conversa is influenced by Shell’s personal life experience. He grew up with three sisters, all of whom suffered from several chronic health conditions that needed continuous monitoring. “My three sisters are the ones who drove me to create Conversa. In each case, the health system failed them. They did not receive the educational materials and personalized information to help them manage their conditions,” Shell said. “Once they left the clinical encounter, they stopped being patients.” Unhappy with the conditions that his sisters faced, Shell realized there was need for effective communication and continuous monitoring of a patient’s health in order to deliver better care. The will to improve the healthcare communication process is the spark that drove him to build Conversa Health. Conversa Conversation Platform™ As healthcare’s conversation platform, Conversa delivers an easy and meaningful way for care teams and patients to communicate. It has an extensive library of over 700 clinically-intelligent conversation programs that include asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), congestive heart failure (CHF), diabetes, hypertension, joint replacement, and many more. The company offers innovative and scalable Conversational AI technology enabling healthcare organizations to deliver automated, personalized doctor-patient conversation experiences. The improved scale and communication leads to more meaningful patient relationships, effective population
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management and, ultimately, better clinical and financial outcomes. The Clinically-intelligent technology Conversa’s proprietary technology, which includes a taxonomy-driven patient profile, automatically calibrates the timing, channel of outreach, priority, and sequencing of modules for the conversation content delivered. Over time, Conversa’s smart technology learns and identifies profile-based patterns that dynamically adjust and improve what is asked, what is said, and what data is collected from each patient in each conversation. This feature allows the care providers to engage and monitor the patients individually. No two conversation experiences are alike because no two patients are alike. Illustrious Acknowledgments In its journey so far, Conversa has received many notable awards and accolades for its valuable contribution to the healthcare industry and best-in-class product. This includes the honorable recognition as Digital Health Disrupter and Leader in a research report published by Juniper and the North American Patient Engagement Solutions Technology Leadership Award by Frost and Sullivan. The company was also chosen as an IDC Patient Engagement Innovator, a Leading Care Management Virtual Health Assistant by HealthXL, and a Top Patient Relationship Management Solution by Chilmark Research. What’s Ahead? More and more health organizations and healthcare technology companies are using Conversa: Northwell Health, Atrium Health System, University Hospitals, Centura Health, Healthgrades, Allscripts, and many more. As Conversa is well positioned to engage massive populations on a personal level, the company is also receiving tremendous interest from Pharma and Payer organizations looking to engage patient users to drive lower costs and improve health outcomes.
Micrima A Leading Organization Developing Technology for Breast Cancer Screening
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Our major mission is to reduce the number of women who die of breast cancer by developing a system that can aid earlier detection of the tumor
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oday, over half a million women die of breast cancer every year. Yet, if a tumor of less than 1cm in size is detected, with no lymph involvement, survival rates at 5 years are comparable with someone who has not had cancer. Addressing this problem, an eminent organization named Micrima was set up with the aim of reducing the number of women who die of breast cancer by developing a system that can aid earlier detection. Micrima believes that the early detection of breast cancer can be achieved by frequent screening from an early age, which cannot be achieved with current screening methods. Dedicated to improve the conventional diagnosis methods, Micrima has set out to develop a system that is comfortable for the patient, easy to interpret, and can be used frequently from a much younger age in order to detect cancer early.
conversant with bringing complex technologies to market, developing worldwide distribution networks, and negotiating and managing strategic relationships with some of the industry’s leading players. Following a career in large USA corporates, he has founded 4 medical technology companies and has advised the government in the Life Sciences sector.
Originally based on technology for the detection of buried landmines, the early application to breast imaging was spun-out from the University of Bristol, as Micrima, in 2006. The founders of the company, Roy Johnson, Professor Alan Preece, and Professor Ian Craddock, recognized the impact the technology could potentially have on breast cancer detection and mortality rates. Until 2014, Micrima continued to fund the work at the University, when the reduced technology risk justified the investment into establishing and growing the physical company. Today, the company consists of 23 hardware, software, and product development engineers with a small commercial team. It is continuing to expand in all areas of the business to meet the strategic aims of the company.
MARIA®: A Unique Product of Micrima MARIA® (Multistatic Array Radio-wave Image Acquisition) is a revolutionary product of Micrima that uses radio-waves to detect breast cancer. The procedure of diagnosis includes the patient lying on their tummy on the bed, such that breast to be imaged is pendulant through a hole in the bed. Then, the array comes up to meet the breast, there are different size inserts to accommodate different sizes of breast. This array contains 60 antennae that each transmits and receives. They each do this in turn, taking 22 seconds before the array rotates. The same process is repeated twice more to build up a 3D map of the tissues throughout the breast. MARIA® measures the signal reflected at the interface between tissues of different electromagnetic material properties showing reflections from the edges of lesions.
About the Intellectual Leader Roy Johnson is the Executive Chairman of Micrima who has over 35 years’ of enriching experience in the medical device and diagnostics sector. He has been operating at board level in both the UK and the USA. He is particularly
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The commercial team at Micrima is working very closely with its clinical partners ensuring the exact needs of the customer are met. Today, MARIA® is used as an adjunct to
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Roy Johnson Executive Chairman
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other imaging modalities to reduce the chances of missing the tumor. Producing the image takes about 1% of the collected data on the breast tissues, so there is a lot more information available. The next important step is to work with the clinical partners in Europe to understand what information they require and the best way to display such information, adding higher levels of functionality to the system. The company will launch the first step of this program soon and will begin to classify regions of interest as to the likelihood of these regions of interest being benign or malignant. Professor Lain Lyburn, a consultant radiologist at Thirlestaine Breast Centre, Cheltenham, recently said,“We have been involved in the evaluation of the MARIA® system for some time now and whilst it is currently offered as an adjunct to other imaging modalities, particularly where dense tissue is involved, the technique promises the exciting ability to distinguish between tissue types in the future. Any imaging modality that can readily give this sort of functional information has the potential to influence many points in the diagnostic and treatment pathways - there could be less need for biopsies and possibly a reduction in overtreatment.” Challenges on the Way The road to success is never easy. Likewise, Micrima, faced many ups and downs in getting to this stage of development. Right from persuading the investors to back the growing enterprise to solving various technical challenges along the way and ensuring the right approach to the commercialization of the product, Micrima has overcome all these hurdles. On the financing front, though it wasn’t tough for the
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company to convince the audiences of the unmet need regarding breast cancer, the case still had to be made for its specific technological approach. The crucial part was to prove the capability and determination of the key personnel and the growing management team. Today, Micrima is supported by a growing list of quality investors who passionately wish to take the organization forward. Awards and Accreditations In recent years, Micrima has been recognized with several awards. Most of these awards are focused on the technology and innovation of the MARIA® system. These include general innovation awards, like the ‘Medilink SW innovation Award in 2018’. Micrima has also been honored with ‘The Frost and Sullivan New Product Innovation Award- Breast Imaging in 2019’ and the ‘Global Health and Pharma Best Oncology Diagnostic Imaging Device Manufacture in 2019 Award’. Moving towards Success The ongoing primary goal for Micrima is the evolution of the MARIA® software to deliver increasing degrees of tissue differentiation. The company is hopeful to be able to identify the type of malignancy along with the diagnosis of the disease. “If we can assist radiologists by indicating which are low grade, slow growing, and can/should be monitored over time, and which are invasive, high grade, and rapidly growing, this could have huge implications for the treatment of breast cancer. There is also the possibility to use this technology for detecting other types of cancer in the body in the future,” says Roy. On the commercial front, Micrima will continue its progress in Europe. The company is also planning to take this inventive technology to the US and Asia, once the relevant regulatory approvals are in place.
NEMAURA PHARMA Offering Precise User-friendly Skin-based Drug Delivery Technologies
Today, the company is at the forefront of Transdermal and skin drug delivery having developed in-house specialist knowledge and skills, and multiple proprietary novel delivery systems. The company is well positioned to provide solutions for complex drug delivery challenges, using an array of formulation and device technologies. Innovative Services Nemaura started with a single technology for chronotherapeutic drug delivery. Today, it has grown to become a leading expert in the field of drug delivery through the skin with multiple proprietary platform technologies covering injectables, topical, and transdermal formulations and over 21 drugs in the active development using these platforms covering a wide range of therapeutic areas.
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We focus on innovation, not just to create new drugs or
medications, but also to make the existing healthcare systems better.
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emaura Pharma is a renowned organization that started with developing a single technology for delivering drugs through the skin. Today, it is a company with over 100 patents filed, many of which are already granted in multiple territories. The patents cover a diverse array of platforms that allows the administration of almost any drug through the skin.
About the Ingenious Leader Dr. Faz Chowdhury, the dynamic Founder and CEO of Nemaura Pharma originally trained as a drug formulator, and also holds a Master’s degree in Microsystems and Nanotechnology from Cranfield University in the UK, and a PhD in nanomedicine and drug delivery from the University of Oxford. So, far he has amassed over 100 patents across over 20 technology platforms as sole inventor, as well as having written textbook chapters for Wiley and Elsevier on the subject of Bio-Nanosciences. Apart from Nemaura Pharma, he also founded Nemaura Medical Inc., which is a public listed company in the US (Nasdaq: NMRD), focused on developing and commercializing non-invasive wearable diagnostic systems. Inspiring Journey
Nemaura takes pride in being able to undertake complex drug delivery challenges and developing both formulation and device based solutions to tackle these challenges. The company has in-house facilities to be able to design develop, test and manufacture prototypes of devices and drug formulations. It offers comprehensive pharmaceutical formulation development services from concept to clinical batch production and supply, all based on its proprietary intellectual property.
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Prior to commencing studies at the University, Dr. Faz had always planned to start his own technology company that would give him something challenging to pursue. Initially, the hard part for him was to decide when to set up a company and in what field. During his undergraduate studies, he discovered his strength in drug formulation and delivery systems. Within his first eight years of employment he decided that it was the right time in terms of experience and exposure in the industry, to set up Nemaura Pharma.
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Dr. Faz Chowdhury Founder & CEO
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Today, as with most of the technology companies and more so for companies working in the Pharmaceutical domain, getting a first product to market could take over a decade. There is a continuous cycle of bringing in new investment which is no mean feat for any company as the criteria for the investment is the same no matter how small or large the company. Nemaura has seamlessly navigated this situation with its compelling technology platforms and has raised substantial funds both through product licensing as well as from equity investors. Currently, the company is poised to make some radical changes in the field of drug delivery in particular and to the field of biologics and vaccines, which collectively addresses a market opportunity in the 10's of billions of dollars. Colossal Achievement When asked about the milestones the company has achieved so far, Dr. Faz shared, “Early in the company’s history we embarked on a development program for a complex transdermal patch, and within 3 months we completed initial proof of concept and subsequently went on to successfully develop the product through to clinical trials and submission to the FDA (United States Food and Drug Administration).” This was a highly challenging formulation with some serious intellectual property constraints to navigate. There were few companies including multinationals that were able to successfully develop this product at the time. It was a mammoth achievement for the company’s scientists and engineers, reflecting on their ingenuity and expertise. Awards and Accolades Nemaura received the ‘Frost and Sullivan Technology Leadership Award ’ in 2016 for Europe for its cutting-edge innovative skin delivery technologies and for its potential impact in the future for the administration of a wide range of medicines. Last year, in 2018, the company also received the ‘Medilink UK National Award ’ for drug delivery which was further endorsement of its innovative technologies. Words of Advice “The healthcare space is and will always be a burgeoning
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field with vast potential for innovation. Innovation in this field does not necessarily have to be related to new medicines and therapies, it can also be methods and devices to make existing medicines easier to administer and perhaps with enhanced safety profiles through drug targeting or a change in the route of administration. Companies should find a specific problem to solve and put resources and effort into developing a practical and costeffective solution to that problem so that there is a clear route to market, preferably built on clinical need, and if it can then be applied to other drugs is then that is a bonus, rather than starting with a platform technology at the outset ” advises Dr. Faz to the budding entrepreneurs. He further adds, “Finally, we can’t be phased by the long lead times to develop and bring a technology or product to market, which can in the case of a new drug delivery technology over 10 years; if the technology has real tangible benefits to the patient and the potential to reduce the burden on healthcare providers then it is worth pursuing.” Future Prospect One of the breakthrough technologies of Nemaura allows proteins and vaccines to be produced as a solid dosage form, in the form of a small particle or microneedle like structure. The company has spent almost six years perfecting this technology and securing intellectual property around it. The company has a very ambitious goal of adapting multiple vaccines in to this technology platform as it offers two fundamental advantages: the first is that it avoids the need for having to store the drug in a refrigerator prior to use, and so reducing the cost of the cold chain maintenance. The second advantage is that it is very easy to use and can be self-administered without any training. The company has estimated that this project would require up to a decade to fully execute. Within the next 5 years, Nemaura expects the bulk of over 21 drugs in development to also be launched in to global markets, including drugs to treat migraine, osteoporosis, and diabetes. Nemaura is currently also planning to build its own state-of-the-art research, development and manufacturing facility in Loughborough, UK.
Transformative AI Revolutionizing Healthcare with Deep Learning
A Unique Approach Today, globally, over six million people per year suffer from Ventricular Tachyarrhythmia (VT), which is a precursor to Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA). There is no existing cardiac monitoring technology that can automatically and accurately warn healthcare providers of an oncoming arrest. Instead, bystanders or healthcare providers rush to begin delivering cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and if possible, prepare for defibrillation. Transformative AI is aimed at changing this scenario and with this goal, the start-up has its initial focus on predicting Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) before it occurs. Using advanced AI and statistical analysis techniques from Cambridge University and CERN, Transformative AI’s algorithm detects minute changes in patient physiology and predicts an imminent real-time risk of SCA. The unique algorithm would serve as the basis for an early warning system that would improve patientsurvival for a broad spectrum of high-risk patients. This approach maximizes the time for clinicians to provide timely defibrillation, providing patients with the best chance of survival and creating a step change in the rapid-response workflow.
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We believe that with AI, we can transform healthcare workflows and save lives while generating value for patients, health systems, and society
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n eminent start-up that creates artificial intelligent algorithms to predict acute outcomes of chronic diseases is Transformative AI. The start-up’s vision is to develop a suite of AI-enabled predictive analytics for a wide range of medical conditions.
Furthermore, predictive monitoring holds the potential to prevent ventricular tachyarrhythmia (VT) from developing in a subset of patients. Thus, early warning can usher in a new era of research into the use of antiarrhythmic medicines to prevent SCA. The company’s second wave of products will build upon its initial work by improving care for related cardiac conditions. Transformative AI believes that AI will generate massive value when it is used to transform healthcare workflows. About the Trio Dr. Marek Sirendi, one of the Co-founders, previously worked as a data scientist on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, where he performed the world’s most precise measurement of the W boson and designed real-time decision algorithms for LHC collisions. He holds a PhD
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Dr. Marek Sirendi Co-founder
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in Physics from the University of Cambridge and was a Marie Curie fellow. He co-founded the company with Dr. Joshua Oppenheimer, who is an Emergency Medicine Physician, and Dr. Marek Rei, who is a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Cambridge. Dr. Rei is a deep learning and predictive analytics expert from his work at SwiftKey, a company that created a predictive keyboard and exited to Microsoft.
Entrepreneur First and was named as ‘ TechCrunch’s Top 3 Entrepreneur First Start-ups’. Turning Challenges into Opportunities Asked about the major challenges they faced while launching the start-up, they said, “As the predictive healthcare field is so new with few precedents, we’ve had to work with and will continue working with several regulatory consultants and lawyers.”
Exceptional Algorithm for the Betterment Transformative AI’s artificially intelligent predictive algorithm, CodeRhythm, predicts SCA within minutes, with high accuracy on cardiac data. This would serve as the basis for an early warning software-as-a-service that would alert clinicians of impending ventricular arrhythmias and improve patient survival across various global healthcare settings. Awards and Accolades Transformative AI has won competitive public and private award funding in the U.K., EU, and the U.S. It has also won the Global Pistoia Alliance Audience Choice Award. The company was one of the first start-ups to work with the Center for Medical Interoperability in the US. It was also selected to work with Philips Healthworks and
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As a healthcare start-up, Transformative AI has achieved more than its share and will be looking forward to more advancements and developments. Upon asking them about what advice they would give to budding entrepreneurs, Dr. Sirendi said, “Stick with your goal and never give up.”