Navigate the healthcare industry
Healthcare Brew covers pharmaceutical developments, health startups, the latest tech, and how it impacts hospitals and providers to keep administrators and providers informed.
A nationally renowned research university, a pre-seed investor, and an insurance company walk into a bar…
And create a startup accelerator.
Johns Hopkins University, venture capital (VC) firm Techstars, and not-for-profit payer CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield announced a partnership in late August to create a 13-week program that supports early-stage companies looking to improve healthcare with artificial intelligence (AI).
The partners plan to invest in startups in the health tech, medtech, and biotech fields, according to an August 23 press release. The accelerator, based in Baltimore, will provide the companies with guidance on navigating the healthcare and regulatory landscapes.
“By collaborating with Techstars at the intersection of healthcare and AI, Johns Hopkins aims to bring more entrepreneurs to our ecosystem and catalyze more startup activity to bring high-impact healthcare innovation to market,” Myra Norton, head of innovation, startup, and ecosystem acceleration at Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures, said in the release.
Techstars has a history of investing in the healthcare space. The VC firm has put millions into more than 600 startups in the industry, including PillPack in 2013, a pharmacy startup that Amazon acquired in 2018 for roughly $1 billion, and it also invested in fertility monitoring company Ovia Health in 2012 and behavioral health clinical supervision firm Motivo in 2018.
The accelerator—called Techstars AI Health Baltimore powered by Johns Hopkins and CareFirst—is slated to begin in March 2025, and the program is accepting applications through November 20, according to the press release.
The bigger picture. AI-based healthcare deals have been booming in recent months as companies try to cash in on the emerging technology’s potential to transform the industry, Healthcare Brew previously reported. According to digital health strategy group and venture fund Rock Health, 34% of overall digital health VC dollars went to AI-based startups in the first half of 2024.
And as a result, the incumbent tech giants are looking to get into the space, too.
Amazon and General Electric’s healthcare spinoff, for example, announced a partnership in August to create AI models the companies hope could move healthcare from reactive to more preventative care. And in July, Microsoft teamed up with Mass General Brigham and the University of Wisconsin–Madison to refine AI models for medical imaging.
“We are excited by the prospect of [AI] as a transformative tool for the future of medicine, but also recognize that it needs to integrate seamlessly into workflows and systems to be most effective,” Doba Parushev, VP and managing partner at Healthworx Ventures, CareFirst’s innovation and investment arm, said in the release.