Dec 9, 2022 | Business
PharmStars, the pharma-focused accelerator for digital health startups, is delighted to announce the graduation of 11 startups from its Fall 2022 program focused on “Innovations in Real-World Evidence (RWE).” The graduating startups successfully completed PharmaU, PharmStars’ 10-week education, and mentoring program. PharmaU culminated with a Showcase Event–held in Boston in early November–that brought together the participating startups and PharmStars’ seven innovation-minded pharma members.
PharmStars focuses on bridging the “pharma-startup gap” to help pharma and startups overcome partnership barriers. PharmStars’ unique PharmaU program provides education and mentorship to help startups more effectively partner with pharma.
The 11 members of the Fall 2022 cohort were selected in August 2022 following a highly competitive application process that attracted 75 applicants from 13 different countries. The selected startups each offer a unique digital health solution related to Real World Evidence. Their diverse array of digital health solutions includes novel remote patient monitoring techniques, new biomarkers, drug discovery tools, analytics tools, data annotation platforms, therapeutic-area data models, and novel RWE datasets.
At the Showcase Event, startups presented their solutions to PharmStars’ pharma members. The startups then had the chance to participate in one-on-one meetings with the members. More than 60 meetings took place over two days. Participating startups said the Showcase Event was extremely valuable and useful to their business.
Zainab Doctor, Vice President for Product at nference said, “I can’t imagine a way we could have gotten this far this quickly with so many pharma in parallel without deploying a much larger sales force.”
Startup CEO, Sameer Sontakey of Biostrap said, “Every single customer conversation at the Showcase was excellent. These have been the best one-on-ones that I’ve had with any pharma clients.”
The CEO of another, international startup agreed that the Showcase Event led to actionable next steps. “We walked away from the Showcase with immediate action items and continued conversations with everyone we met,” said Katheron Intson, CEO of Varient.
The following 11 digital health startups completed the Fall 2022 PharmStars accelerator:
· Biostrap (Austin, TX): High-Resolution, Biosensor-based Digital Biomarker Platform
· Celero Systems (Lincoln, MA): Continuous, Ingestible, One-Week, Physiological Monitoring Platform
· Centaur Labs (Boston, MA): Scalable Data Annotation Platform for the Life Sciences
· Citadel Discovery (Cambridge, MA): AI Platform Using DNA-Encoded Libraries (DELs) for Drug Discovery
· Huma.AI (Palo Alto, CA): Powerful, User-Friendly Natural Language Processing Platform Optimized for the Generation of RWE
· nference (Cambridge, MA): RWE Generation Platform Built on 11+ million Academic Medical Center Medical Records
· Promptly Health (Porto, Portugal): Advanced Analytics Engine that Harmonizes Real-World Data to Generate Insights
· Scienta Lab (Paris, France): AI-Powered Platform for Auto-immune Diseases Modeling at the Patient Level
· uMed (London, England): Queryable, Dynamic Real-World Patient Cohorts for Prospective Population Research
· Unison (London, England): Genomics Data Brokerage Platform
· Varient (Toronto, Canada): Rare Disease Patient Community-Sourced Patient Reported Outcomes and RWE platform
For its Spring 2023 cohort, themed “Innovations in Women’s Health and Health Equity,” PharmStars is accepting applications until January 14, 2023. Digital health startups interested in participating can find information on dates and deadlines and the application form on the PharmStars website.
For pharma and biotech companies, PharmStars 2023 membership is now open to a limited number of additional firms.
About PharmStars
PharmStars is the member-based, pharma-focused accelerator for digital health startups. Through our extensive expertise across pharma, startups, digital health, and innovation, we understand the challenges that pharma and startups face when seeking to collaborate. Our PharmaU program supports digital health startups and our pharma members in “bridging the pharma-startup gap,” leading to greater success and faster adoption of “beyond the molecule” solutions for patients.
Jul 13, 2022 | Business
PharmStars, the pharma-focused accelerator for digital health startups, is delighted to announce the graduation of 11 startups from its Spring 2022 program. The graduates successfully completed the 10-week PharmaU program, which culminated with the Showcase Event held June 8-10 in Boston. The Showcase Event brought together the participating startups and PharmStars’ seven innovation-minded pharma members.
PharmStars focuses on bridging the “pharma-startup gap” by helping pharma and startups overcome partnership barriers. PharmStars’ unique PharmaU program provides education and mentorship to help startups and pharma partner more effectively.
The newest cohort was selected in March 2022 following a competitive application process. Each startup offers a novel digital health solution related to the theme of “Innovations in Neurological Disease.” Their products represent a diverse array of digital health solutions, including digital biomarkers, digital therapeutics, remote patient monitoring, and patient engagement tools.
At the Showcase Event, startups presented their solutions and participated in one-on-one meetings with representatives of PharmStars’ pharma members. Participating startups said that the Showcase Event was extremely impactful.
“Normally, it takes years from an initial meeting to a serious conversation with a pharma company. In one day, we have the attention of six pharma companies specifically interested in what we can do! The opportunity is enormous,” said the CEO of one of the startups.
The CEO of another participating startup said, “We are an early-stage startup. For us, to have an opportunity to showcase our company to major pharma companies…is an occasion that we had not even considered possible. It’s not only the pharma companies’ audience but, most importantly, the ‘right’ people within pharma attended the event.”
The following 11 digital health startups successfully completed the PharmStars accelerator:
· Accexible (Barcelona, Spain): Rapid, remote, device-agnostic speech biomarkers for accurate screening and monitoring of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and early dementia.
· BeCare Link (Rumson, NJ): Gamified, mobile app for the remote, objective, and quantitative assessment of neurological function and decline using AI.
· Deliberate AI (New York, NY): Multi-modal diagnostics platform and machine learning model for the analysis of behavioral and physiological biomarkers to detect symptoms and monitor patients with psychiatric and neurological conditions.
· Head Diagnostics Ltd (Dublin, Ireland): A novel, hand-held medical device measuring ocular microtremor (OMT) enabling the rapid, non-invasive assessment of Parkinson’s disease.
· HealthQb Technologies (Vancouver BC, Canada): A biopsychosocial behavior modification system for pain and chronic disease which objectively measures, prioritizes, and targets a patient’s personalized “hidden” psycho-social factors that contribute to their persistent illness.
· Modus Health (Edmonds, WA): Wearable and validated digital endpoints for measuring real-world walking quantity, intensity, and duration, with demonstrated superior accuracy compared to other wearable mobility assessment tools.
· Neuroventis (Brussels, Belgium): Neurological patient and HCP engagement platform offering services and programs to deliver optimal patient outcomes, improved medication adherence, and generation of real-world data.
· Orbit Health (Munich, Germany): AI-enabled platform using commercially available smartwatches to offer objective, convenient, minute-by-minute information on motor symptoms and treatment response in Parkinson’s patients, in real-world settings.
· REACT Neuro (Cambridge, MA): Self-administered, in home, virtual reality platform for quantitative, comprehensive, and objective neurocognitive assessments.
· Vistim Labs Inc. (Salt Lake City, UT): Novel functional EEG-based, AI-enabled cognitive assessment collecting real-time stimulated brain activity to enable objective measurement of early, previously imperceivable changes in cognitive function.
· WKD.SMRT (Cambridge, MA): Pre-configured, video-based and sensor-based, in-home platform that passively, ambiently, and continuously collects objective, high-quality, real-world data on motor and functional performance.
PharmStars is accepting applications until July 16 for its Fall 2022 cohort, themed “Innovations in Real-World Evidence.” For digital health startups interested in participating, information on dates, deadlines, and the application form is available on the PharmStars website.
PharmStars 2022 membership is now open to a limited number of additional pharma and biotech companies.
About PharmStars
PharmStars is the member-based, pharma-focused accelerator for digital health startups. Through our extensive expertise across pharma, startups, digital health, and innovation, we understand the challenges that pharma and startups face when seeking to collaborate. Our PharmaU program supports digital health startups and our pharma members in “bridging the pharma-startup gap,” leading to greater success and faster adoption of “beyond the molecule” solutions for patients.
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