Health Care : Innovation + Job News

Last week in Austin, TX, James S. Burns of AssureRx Health had more than SXSW on his mind. The president and CEO of the startup headquartered in Mason picked up another honor to top off a run of significant investments in his company by a wide range of “angels.”

Of all the startups in the nation, AssureRX Health received the 2012 Luis Villalobos Award, given annually to the most ingenious and innovative company supported by angel investors.

“This really is such an honor, especially since there are so many startups across the country creating innovation,” Burns says.

AssureRx, a technology that allows doctors to use genetic information and evidence-based standards to select the best possible medication for patients the first time, has its roots in Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and the Mayo Foundation, each of which developed the intellectual property for the technology and provided early investments.

Increased support also translates into more jobs at AssureRx, which plans to grow to 100 local employees, from its current level of around 50, by the end of 2012.

Soapbox has been covering AssureRx’s development and progress since 2008. Read more about the company here:

AssureRx Health raises $11 million series B financing

New AssureRx CEO brings 30 years of experience to guide startup's next growth phase

AssureRx launches its first personalized med product

CincyTech's $10M attracts $100M in co-investments

The U.S. health-care industry is in great need of cost efficiencies and quality of care improvements, and a new company in Cincinnati is poised to help. 

In 2010, as a country, we spent more than $2.6 trillion on health care but still ranked lower than most countries in terms of quality of care. 

Also, new federal legislation will create incentives for hospitals and health-care facilities to meet quality standards and effectively punish those that don’t. 

CincyTech’s newest portfolio company, QI Healthcare, is helping hospitals meet and exceed these quality benchmarks. 

The company was created from technology developed at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center by Dr. Frederick Ryckman, professor of surgery and senior vice president for Medical Operations at Cincinnati Children’s; Paul Yelton, senior application developer; and Candace Overly, project administrator, Perioperative Services. 

What Cincinnati Children’s developed is called the Surgical Outcomes Collection System (SOCS). It’s a software application for use in hospitals and health-care facilities that aggregates data from a hospital’s various systems, including its Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system, to conduct institution-wide analyses of cases where quality of care could be improved. 

“The real power of this software is in the ability to analyze every significant patient case,” says Ryckman. “Before SOCS we spent countless hours manually gathering data. SOCS improves the process through automation and enhanced analytics – and it frees up clinical resources to focus on quality improvement.”

Leading QI’s efforts is experienced entrepreneur and health-tech executive John Atkinson. Before being named CEO of QI, Atkinson held leadership roles at WebMD, Mede America and SourceMedical. He is also co-founder of a successful mobile startup, BuzzVoice, a streaming audio news service for smartphones.

CincyTech and Cincinnati Children’s Tomorrow Fund each invested $200,000. This round of funding will go toward sales, marketing and product development, which includes securing a handful of beta test sites for the SOCS software that has been in use at Cincinnati Children’s for more than a year. 

By Sarah Blazak for CincyTech

The next phase of Covington’s growing life sciences corridor got a boost from Duke Energy, which has awarded the city a $100,000 urban renewal grant for its bioLOGIC accelerator.

The grant will go toward an expansion at bioLOGIC’s 7,000-square-foot second floor at its Russell Street headquarters. The addition will include office and lab space, along with classroom facilities at the life science accelerator. The building’s 5,000-square-foot first floor is at capacity.

bioLOGIC houses seven life sciences companies. Its growth is being fueled in two areas: through expanding existing companies and attracting new companies to locate or relocate to Covington.

The accelerator has a pipeline of nearly a dozen companies looking to locate in its space, either temporarily or permanently, says bioLOGIC Managing Director Keith Schneider. The organization hopes to secure more funding through grants or private investments to complete the build out, which could be finished late this year.

The Duke Energy Foundation’s Urban Revitalization Pilot Program grant is designed to help spur job growth and retention in urban core communities served by Duke Energy. Ohio and Kentucky serves as the young programs pilot area. Duke operates in five states in the southeast and the Midwest.

Duke has been investing in the region’s economic development for years, says Rhonda Whitaker, company director of government and community relations. Traditionally, Duke focused more on large manufacturing and industrial projects, but realized in urban areas such projects are rare.

“We have a Site Readiness program that helps prepare large tracts of land for manufacturing projects, but local leaders said they didn’t meet an urban community’s needs," Whitaker says. "And the urban core is significant and important in our area. Successful regions rely on a strong urban core. And this is really an effort to concentrate on those community’s job growth and sustainability."

The Duke Foundation chose Covington’s bioLOGIC because it was an emerging, successful innovator in the growing life sciences arena. From its inception, it’s been a private, public partnership that relied on private and government investment and support.

“It’s an effort to harness the power of entrepreneurship in the region with space for training and creates a targeted, skilled workforce,” Whitaker says.

By Feoshia Henderson
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Akron has become known as a hub for biomedical companies in recent years, and now a new fund is seeking to further cultivate growth in that sector. The $1.5M Akron BioInvestments Fund targets high-growth companies in orthopedics, wound healing, cardiovascular science, biomaterials, medical devices and other areas for investments.

“While a small part of the Fund supports product development, the main focus is on supporting companies that are 2-3 years away from generating revenues," explains Dr. Zev Gurion, Executive Director of the Akron BioMedical Corridor. "We want companies we invest in to repay the loan so that the Fund will not become depleted over time. That’s why the business potential of the company is considered, as well as economic development elements."

Companies that receive investments must maintain an Akron headquarters or plan to establish a local presence, with an emphasis placed on the Biomedical Corridor. The Fund gets most of its backing from private organizations such as Medical Mutual, First Energy, Cascade Capital and NEOMED. The City of Akron created the fund through its Akron Development Corporation.

The Fund is composed of two parts. The Rapid Commercialization Loan Fund provides low-interest loans to companies that are close to commercialization. The Product Development Fund supports biomedical startups by financing proof of concept, prototyping, market assessment and business-plan development.

Committees made up of representatives from the University of Akron, county and regional government, private businesses and regional organizations make recommendations to the Fund’s board. Cascade Capital acts as the Fund Manager.

Zurion says that the Fund has made two investments so far, a $25,000 grant and a loan for $200,000. The Fund received six qualified applications in the first partial round of applications which ended December 31.


Source: Dr. Zev Gurion
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

IG Studio, a collaboration between Cincinnati-based design firm GBBN Architects, Inc. and Kentucky-based Chinese firm IPPR International Engineering Corporation, won its first Chinese government contract this year designing the Sanya Cardiovascular Rehab Resort on Sanya Island. The win kicks off the two companies' plans of entering eight competitions annually over the next 10 years in the hopes of making IG Studio self-sufficient in three and internationally competitive in six.
 
Through IG Studio, the two companies are working to capture a piece of the exploding Chinese economy by designing 600- to 1,000-bed hospitals in large Chinese cities. Five hundred hospitals are planned across the country in the next 10 years. IG Studio, located in Beijing, has a staff of eight and is a 50-50 partnership between the two companies.
 
"(IG Studio) came together after a three-year collaboration on healthcare design projects," between GBBN and IPPN, says Greg Otis, director of Arts and Education for GBBN. "(IPPN) was looking for a western healthcare design influence to augment their designs. And we've been very successful in that work. But we wanted to get our brand out there in design and healthcare, and IPPR wanted to internationalize their business."
 
Because of the two companies similar goals, a meeting between the two giants earlier this year during a tour of the Toyota plant in Georgetown, Ky., led to what both companies hope will be a successful joint venture designing large hospitals across China. Companies vie to design these hospitals through invitation-only competitions held by the Chinese government, Otis explains.
 
GBBN is an international design firm with offices in Cincinnati, Lexington and Louisville, Ky., Pittsburgh and Beijing. The firm specializes in large scale building design in the healthcare, education, housing, community and cultural sectors. Local projects include the Newport Aquarium, Great American Ballpark, the Bank of Kentucky Center at NKU and UC's Tangeman University Center.