Cedars-Sinai & Techstars Partner in Funding Program
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Techstars, a start-up accelerator, have partnered together to help provide funding for the next generation of health care entrepreneurs, according to Modern Healthcare. The companies hope to provide resources to new companies working towards health care-based technology.
The funding partners will invite about 10 to 12 start-up entrepreneurs to participate in the three-month program. The program will give the companies access to the Cedars-Sinai laboratories and clinicians. The founders agreed to give up equity in their companies in exchange for up to $120,000 in funding, according to Modern Healthcare.
“We see it as very much a part of our mission. This is a different type of community benefit, which is how can we as a health system help young entrepreneurs learn fast — or maybe fail fast,” said Darren Dworkin, Cedars-Sinai’s chief information officer, to Modern Healthcare.
The fact that Cedars-Sinai partnered with Techstars to fund start-ups shows the medical center’s commitment to patients and the future of health care. “Cedars-Sinai’s longstanding focus of innovation, quality and patient-center care makes this partnership with Techstars a great fit. By helping to accelerate promising new technologies into health care, our partnership with Techstars will benefit patients around the country and around the world,” said Thomas M. Priselac, Cedars-Sinai’s CEO, in a statement.
The start-up accelerator program will launch in March, according to Mobi Health News. This program is not the first time that Cedars-Sinai has worked to develop innovative technology. The health care system has a long history of helping its own clinicians commercialize technologies that they have developed inside the organization, according to Modern Healthcare. They have spun out companies such as the 2014 Modern Healthcare winner of Best Places to Work in Healthcare, Zynx Health as well as Stanson Health, which has helped Cedars-Sinai save more than $6 million annually in hospital costs. Cedars-Sinai has also worked with companies outside of the organization. “What really intrigued us was that there’s this whole world of technology outside the organization,” Dworkin said to Modern Healthcare.
In 2015, Cedars-Sinai also partnered with Memorial Care Health System to launch Summation Health Ventures, according to Modern Healthcare. This fund focuses on early to mid-stage information technology and technology-enabled device companies. At the moment, the investment fund has seven companies involved and is currently looking for more companies to join. Although these partnerships allow it to work with early and mid-stage startups, the partnership with Techstars allows Cedars-Sinai to work with companies in even earlier stages.
If the firms in the Cedars-Sinai and Techstars partnership thrive, the companies could eventually become investments for Summation Health Ventures as well, according to Modern Healthcare. Patient privacy, data analytics and cyber security are areas that Cedars-Sinai is looking to focus in, according to Dworkin. The company also has a focus on the intersection of consumerism and health care, but is willing to look beyond those markets. According to Dworkin, they are not completely sure what the future holds.
“What I’m most excited about is the unknown. A piece of making it really innovate is finding ideas that we never thought of,” Dworkin said to Modern Healthcare.