Inova Discovery Series Attracts National Investors And Reveals New Consumer Health Findings
IPHA Oracle Survey Identifies Four Consumer Health Factors That Impact HealthTech Innovation
November 13, 2018
The Fall 2018 Inova Discover Series program showcased the Inova Personalized Health Accelerator’s (IPHA) definitive role as a driving force in the health tech innovation community. In just under one year since their official launch, IPHA has built a roadmap for identifying, cultivating, investing in and adopting healthcare innovation that has received national attention.
The Discovery Series event, held at the Inova campus on November 7th, was a great platform to bring the community together around a health tech innovation. The program consisted of a showcase for new regional health tech companies and a panel discussion on the impact of changing consumer expectations on healthcare delivery. IPHA also released the results from the IPHA Oracle Survey and explored the impact they will have on health tech Innovation as a primary theme of the program.
The event also provided an opportunity to introduce the Strategic Ventures Group to the BioHealth Capital Region’s vibrant health tech community. This group of health system venture capital investors comes from some of the most prestigious health systems from around the country that IPHA is also part of.
Rick Gordon, Director of IPHA, welcomed the audience and reinforced their mission to provide early-stage funding and mentoring. “Finding precious seed capital is increasingly more difficult, especially in this region,” he shared. The IPHA acts to fill this need and INOVA IPHA Health Tech Early Stage Funding has been instrumental in bringing pre-seed, seed, and A round financing to health tech startups by making them part of their investment portfolio. Their portfolio now includes four early-stage companies; Cyrano Therapeutics, CoverMyTest, HeMemics and Kinometrix.
Mike Thomas, Director at IPHA, unveiled the results from the IPHA Oracle Survey. Four Key Themes emerged from the findings that indicated notable opportunities for health tech innovation. The themes from the study include;
- Younger women expressed a greater interest and motivation to engage with health tech;
- NOVA is not representative of national trends of attitudes about healthcare products and services;
- Data security concerns are paramount; and
- When consumers want a health tech app or service, they want it immediately.
These findings are important for entrepreneurs to understand for the success of their ventures in the personal health tech space. For IPHA, the survey also enhances their ability to mentor and strategically advise their portfolio companies or other entrepreneurs in the space.
The program underscored the vital importance of making consumers certain that their personal health information is secure. It also made it clear that those who want personal health tech services and devices want them as soon as possible once they decide they have a need.
Molly McCartin, Partner @drivecapital shares that entrepreneurs need to find the right path in the regulatory environment to bring a product to market #InovaFunded @InovaPHA #InovaDiscoverySeries pic.twitter.com/AVartfVAcG
— BioBuzz (@BioBuzzMaryland) November 8, 2018
Ultimately, the tech put on the market must meet the needs of three different entities. “It’s not one customer,” said Molly McCartin, a partner at Drive Capital, “It’s the provider, the payor, and the consumer. The product needs to serve all three without forgetting about any of them.”
Navigating such a complicated landscape is a lot for an entrepreneur to tackle when trying to develop their idea into a viable product. Thankfully, IPHA and their community of advisors and mentors, like McCartin, are there to help. It’s a collaborative effort to support the early stage entrepreneurs, and the Discovery Series was a great example of this effort coming together.
More on Inova’s Personalized Health Accelerator
IPHA has become a beacon for early state health tech funding since launching nearly a year ago on November 30, 2017. Funding for the portfolio itself is provided by Inova health system which maintains a dual interest in both in promoting new personal health tech products and services, and realizing a return on their investment.
IPHA provides a range of services to these early startups, including working with entrepreneurs to validate their concepts to help them reach the stage of clinical evaluation. Their combination of access to advisors who have personal experiences building successful companies, and very early stage investment by health care systems provides entrepreneurs with essential funding and tools. This talent pool and focus on the individual entrepreneur is designed to minimize the investment risk while maximizing returns, with accelerator programs that are customized to each startup. By providing the initial financing and tools, the ISI (Inova Strategic Investments) ensures that more ideas are developed while giving health care systems a stake in the newest health tech innovations.
