By GREGORY ZELLER //
Northwell Health has added another economic-development engine to its impressive collection.
Already busily commercializing research and generating early-stage enterprises through its Northwell Ventures and Northwell Holdings operations – and through other efforts, both foreign and domestic – the New Hyde Park-based health system will mine additional startup opportunities through Ascertain, a unique “joint company creation platform” built to leverage next-generation healthcare breakthroughs.
Northwell partners this time with Aegis Ventures, a New York City-based startup that works with entrepreneurs and executives to create, launch and scale-up “transformative companies.” Ascertain formalizes plans first revealed in 2021, when the health system officially announced its collaboration with Aegis.
Transformation here will rely largely on artificial intelligence. Ascertain aims “to develop and commercialize breakthrough healthcare AI companies,” according to a Northwell statement, with cutting-edge data sciences in play.
Michael Dowling: Equitable solutions, and make it quick.
And it should come quickly: The joint platform will unite clinical and business leaders with top technicians and product-development experts, all enjoying access to the enormous health system’s diverse datasets, the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research’s big brains and Northwell’s considerable capital resources – a bona fide fast track for validating solutions and speeding them to market.
Mission 1A is all about balancing out national healthcare, with special attention paid to new technologies that “improve quality and access to care and close health-equity gaps,” according to Northwell.
Ascertain is certainly off to a fast and balanced start, with a $100 million seed fund in its coffers and its first portfolio companies already coming together – including a collaboration with Northwell’s Center for Maternal Health focused on new care protocols for expectant mothers and their babies.
Northwell Health President and CEO Michael Dowling applauded Ascertain’s “unique structure,” which is designed to identify and support new companies “that are set up for success.”
“Ascertain brings … an innovative approach and a compelling vision to create breakthrough healthcare AI companies,” Dowling said Wednesday. “Our aim is clear: to find new, cost-efficient ways to create and accelerate companies that deliver real, equitable solutions.”
The startup’s data-science team is working closely with Northwell’s maternal- and fetal-medicine teams, examining tens of thousands of cases of preeclampsia, a hypertensive pregnancy complication known to disproportionately affect black mothers.
Their goal is an AI-based solution that will help clinicians better predict – and possibly prevent – preeclampsia cases. And their data-science approach is exactly what Ascertain was built to do, according to Northwell Health Chief of Maternal Medicine Burt Rochelson.
“An important enabler for a solution to this challenge is predictive analytics – applying available knowledge of a patient’s history to enable action far earlier, with simple-yet-life-saving clinical interventions,” Rochelson noted. “We believe the AI solution Ascertain is currently developing will enable this.”
The maternal-care effort is just a hint of Ascertain’s potential. The startup platform is “preparing to launch multiple companies in 2022,” according to Northwell, with chronic-disease detection and other AI-enabled breakthroughs in sight.
Aegis Ventures Chairman Bill Schoenfeld trumpeted a collection of “extraordinarily complementary” talents lifting the innovative business-creation platform.
“Aegis and Northwell’s multidisciplinary teams are pursuing innovation through a systematic approach that will bring validated solutions to patients more quickly and at a lower cost,” Schoenfeld added. “Our skillsets … enable us to address healthcare’s most entrenched quality, equity and cost problems far more powerfully than either organization could alone.”
Source: https://www.innovateli.com/northwell-startup-stakes-100m-for-health-tech-equity/