Johns Hopkins University is partnering with a non-profit intermediary and a pre-seed stage accelerator in an attempt to recruit, invest in, and speed the growth and success of a select group of early-stage health IT companies in the State of Maryland.
The nonprofit, BioHealth Innovation and the pre-seed stage accelerator, DreamIt Ventures are building the program in Baltimore, where Johns Hopkins is located. Already, DreamIt has built a similar program in Philadelphia, using Penn Medicine and Independence Blue Cross as the partners in that venture.
"The key to making health care more accessible is innovation, and the most fertile focus for health care innovation is in acquiring, storing, analyzing and sharing information," Ronald J. Daniels, President of Johns Hopkins, said in a statement. "This accelerator project will have important implications for the future use of information as we use technology to find solutions for the most pressing health problems of our day. Just as important, it sets up Baltimore to become even more central to the health care information revolution through the rapid validation of solutions."
Potential startups will be able to work with Johns Hopkins and gain access to key individuals throughout the region's wealth of federal healthcare institutions including the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Companies will be recruited and selected from around the world and reside in Baltimore for the four-month duration of the program.
The companies will be given an injection of capital and resources as well as paired with entrepreneurs-turned-mentors. They’ll also receive a startup and healthcare curriculum taught by accomplished practitioners and meet with subject matter experts and investors.
