A new cohort of health care-related startups has joined the third generation of a local incubator program that offers budding businesses up to $100,000 in preseed-stage funding, wet and dry lab space and other perks.
AlphaLab Health, a joint effort from Pittsburgh-based investment group Innovation Works Inc. and health care giant Allegheny Health Network, will now bring six more startups into its prestigious accelerator. These companies will receive group education sessions and access to clinicians, hospital executives and other experts to build out their products in the health care sector. The startups selected for AlphaLab Health's third cohort focus on diagnostics, therapeutics, medical devices, and health care IT.
"AlphaLab Health’s unique model provides companies direct engagement with the health care system, on both the provider and payer side, enabling them to test their assumptions and pilot interactions," Megan Shaw, managing director for life sciences at Innovation Works, said in a press release. "This cohort of ALH includes a strong set of clinician-entrepreneurs who developed solutions to address the challenges they and their patients faced. We’re excited to see these individuals bringing their talents beyond the bedside to help revolutionize health care."
Added Dr. Jeff Cohen, chief physician executive, community health and innovation for AHN: "This joint venture continues to provide value to the entire region through growing the innovation economy and nurturing new ways to advance health care. Top researchers and clinicians at AHN can help these entrepreneurs refine and advance their ideas and expand their own thinking about the future of care."
These are the startups tapped for AlphaLab Health's 2022-2023 cohort:
- Advanced Optronics Inc. — producing an integrated force and position sensor for cochlear implants to provide real-time feedback during surgery that aims to reduce trauma and damage that can be caused to residual hearing during implantation
- Expressive Painimation — developer of an electronic pain assessment tool that relies on patient-calibrated animations to assess the quality and type of pain instead of using verbal communication, erasing language and literacy barriers
- Handl Health — makers of a health care price transparency platform that looks to improve a patient's shopping, booking and paying for health care needs
- InnSight Teachnology Inc. — creators of novel ophthalmic diagnostic devices for vision screenings
- Noctem Health — behavioral sleep care provider
- Respair Inc. — developing an endotracheal tube prototype that aims to reduce the need for ventilator-associated events.
