The newborn was diagnosed with tracheobronchomalacia, a condition in which the airways collapse, not allowing oxygen to enter the lungs. That, tragically, caused repeated heart attacks. As the doctors said when writing up the case study for the New England Journal of Medicine, “ventilation that was sufficient to prevent recurring cardiopulmonary arrests could not be maintained.”

Doctors then printed a splint that is completely customized to the baby’s tracheal tubes, based on a “computed tomographic image of the patient’s airway.” It’s bioresorbable, made out of a material called polycaprolactone, so it will never need to be withdrawn, and the baby’s body will just naturally absorb and discard the splint within three years.

By that time, doctors say, the baby’s lungs and airways will have developed enough strength to stay open by themselves.

Source: New England Journal of Medicine

The 3-D printed tracheal insert being placed

According to LiveScience, prior to 3-D printing, lung splints were carved by hand. 3-D printed splints can be fabricated in a single day, however, and cost about a third as much.

After inserting the device, doctors kept the baby on a ventilator for 21 days, until the child was discharged from hospital. One year after the surgery, no “unforeseen problems related to the splint have arisen.”

Doctors’ conclusions?

“This case shows that high-resolution imaging, computer-aided design, and biomaterial three-dimensional printing together can facilitate the creation of implantable devices for conditions that are anatomically specific for a given patient.”

Neurotrack, the startup that won the health prize at this year’s SXSW, has pulled in a round of seed funding, according to a Form D filing.

The $90,000 boost from angel investors is the first outside capital for the company with a diagnostic test for Alzheimer’s disease.

CEO Elli Kaplan is aiming her life’s work at Alzheimer’s and related disorders. “I watched two of my grandparents die ‘alone’ because they could no longer remember their family members who were sitting at their bedsides,” she said.

Neurotrack’s test is bolstered by 25 years of neuroscience research. Millions of dollars from foundations and grants have already been poured into the technology, which was developed by researchers at Emery University.

The company offers a computer-based cognitive test that can detect an impairment on the Hippocampus, the first structure in the brain to be impacted by Alzheimer’s. The program evaluates patients’ eye movement — and the time spent looking at familiar and new images.

Related: The founders launched the company at DEMO — read the full VentureBeat story here.

Kaplan was impressed by the technology, which she claims could predict patients with a high risk of Alzheimer’s up to six years prior to the onset of the disease. So Neurotrack licensed it and is beginning to commercialize the test by selling to pharmaceutical companies.

“The biggest issue that pharma companies have is populating clinical trials with people who are pre-symptomatic,” said Kaplan. To develop drugs to treat Alzheimer’s, they need access to patients before irreparable damage is done.

The Alzheimer’s Association reports that about 5.4 million Americans have Alzheimer’s – and that number is expected to rise to 16 million by 2050. But Kaplan is convinced that we’ll someday develop a drug that can cure the disease.

For now, informed patients can make lifestyle changes (exercising more, adapting eating habits) and take medication to delay the onset of the disease. “We know that some of the symptom-treating drugs are more effective the earlier you can start them,” said Kaplan.

Results from the most recent research is very promising — according to Kaplan, the participants who scored below 50 percent on the test have all received an Alzheimer’s diagnosis within six years. None of those scoring above 67 on the test have converted to Alzheimer’s. Ninety-two people participated in the study.

Neurotrack isn’t ready for the public yet — but if and when it becomes available, Kaplan said, people in their 50s will get tested every year. Patients with a family history of Alzheimer’s may receive the test earlier.

Kaplan would not yet disclose pricing information for the test when it becomes available. The company is in the midst of fundraising for its next round and is still fleshing out its go-to-market strategy. It is a graduate of Rock Health Boston, which has a strong relationship with venture firm Kleiner Perkins, and first launched at DEMO.

Top image of the founders at DEMO via Flickr

Seattle-based Remote Medical just scored $8 million to bring health care to virtually anyone in need, anywhere in the world.

Remote Medical serves companies and individuals in remote places; it’s a good option for military personell, research teams, law enforcement groups, or those lucky billionaires living out their days on private islands.

Remote Medical offers a variety of services, including telemedicine (physicians can securely chat with patients via video), medical training, drugs, and equipment.

One customer, a remote worker on an island in the South Pacific had a heart attack, but a Remote Medical physician and nurse were able to treat his symptoms. The company’s operations team based at the Seattle headquarters booked a plane and crew to fly him to the nearest hospital in Honolulu.

The company will use the funding to expand its team of some 100 employees, enter into new international markets, and beat out competitors like RemoteMd. Remote Medical has been around since 2003, but hopes it can really establish itself this year and predicts a 60 percent revenue growth.

CEO Brian Vincent said he is looking to hire medical professionals and EMTs as well as sales and operations folk.

The funding comes from Columbia Pacific, a firm that owns 23 hospitals across Asia. Remote Medical will use these hospitals as bases of operations as it expands across the region.

Top image via Remote Medical

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — What do the most innovative doctors and nurses really think about the new wave of medical technology?

While investors and entrepreneurs are making noise about opportunities in the space, health care providers are often the silent, reluctant partner. But to continue to stay at the top of their field, providers are keeping tabs on innovation and new products.

So we invited clinicians from Kaiser Permanente and Stanford University to HealthBeat to discuss the new technology they are piloting in their hospitals, and the gaps that entrepreneurs can fill.

“One of our big challenges is making ourselves accessible,” said Faye Karnavy Sahai, vice president of innovation at Kaiser Permanente (pictured above, right). But Kaiser has built its brand around innovation at the front lines of healthcare, and claims its 17,000 doctors and 49,000 nurses are exposed to new ideas across the spectrum.

“We also work independently with a lot of entrepreneurs and give them advice,” added Sumbul Desai (above, center), a doctor who works as the associate chief medical officer for strategy and innovation at Stanford.

To guide investment in the space, Stanford offers startup founders the opportunity to pilot their technology. A number of innovation fellowships are also available, and the hospital works closely with the accelerator program StartX Med.

“Every morning we’ll meet with folks in the entrepreneurial community — we love doing it and are super invested,” Desai said.

What are the biggest challenges for health entrepreneurs?

Desai said one of the biggest issues is that entrepreneurs don’t do their homework. There are unique regulatory, privacy and compliance issues involved with health care — HIPAA compliance is just the beginning. In addition, founders aren’t as aware as they should be about the competitive market.

The other challenge is integration. Desai stressed that new products need to work well with existing workflows. Kaiser is working on centralizing its electronic medical records (EMR) system, echoing a nationwide trend. To that end, Kaiser inked a deal with Epic Systems, the electronic health record company that health entrepreneurs have a love-hate relationship with.

“Epic is the cornerstone of how we look at our data,” said Desai.

Epic has been criticized for hampering innovation due to its closed system that shuts out third parties. But it has a dominant position in hospitals, and isn’t wise to ignore.

Another issue the speakers raised is that entrepreneurs can often get too fixated on the idea, and not consider the organization that they plan to fit into. It’s easier said than done. So for this reason, startup founders like ConsultingMD’s Owen Tripp are opting to team up with physicians.

And the biggest opportunities?

One of the hottest areas is patient care, but Desai warned that it’s “just one piece of the puzzle.”

Consumer technology is slowly making its way into hospitals. Kaiser is experimenting with putting real-time location data in sponges to prevent them from being left in patients’ bodies during surgery (and producing an ensuing publicity nightmare). In addition, nurses can check in using location proximity badges, making it far easier to track their movements.

Some of the less “sexy” areas include reimbursement and data analysis.

“Big data and analytics will be huge — expect to see predictive diagnostic capabilities,” said Desai. Much of this data will be mined from fitness trackers like FitBit and Jawbone’s Up, which are used by patients as part of a “quantified self” trend.

When asked about the one piece of technology that would be most beneficial, Desai urged innovators in the audience to think big. Physicians need ”an overall digital experience,” she explained, that will clearly list out patient visits, second opinions, virtual visits, and so on.

“Too often we see separate small companies and pockets of innovation right now,” she said.

Photo Credit: Michael O’Donnell/VentureBeat

(Updated with comments from HealthBeat.)

SAN FRANCISCO – Reputation.com founder Owen Tripp is not the kind of entrepreneur who wants to solve small problems. For his new venture, Tripp tells me he has an ambitious solution that will someday “fix health care.”

Tripp’s startup, ConsultingMD, has secured a $10 million funding round led by venture firm Venrock, the health-focused venture capital arm of the Rockefeller family. The mission is to create a virtual clinic where patients are served by the top doctors in the world.

ConsultingMD founder Owen Tripp

“We don’t believe you need a network of thirty thousand doctors to be effective,” said Tripp [pictured above with cofounder Dr. Lawrence "Rusty" Hoffman] in an interview with VentureBeat. “We would rather use the same 750 doctors who achieve successful outcomes again and again.”

Tripp unveiled the funding as well as ConsultingMD’s first product on stage at VentureBeat’s HealthBeat conference today.

“There is a ton of friction between the top experts and the patients who most need them,” Tripp said during an onstage conversation with Bryan Roberts, a partner at venture capital firm Venrock. “We take away all the friction.”

ConsultingMD offers patients the opportunity to consult a leading medical expert for a second opinion — and receive a detailed response in about 48 hours.

Patients are asked to submit some brief details about their case, and sign a release. ConsultingMD’s team will begin assembling a file with a full medical record, demographic information, relevant images, tests, and so on, and select a specialist from the network to take a closer look. ConsultingMD even does optical character recognition and handwriting recognition on the printed files to make them searchable.

The technology is HIPPA-compliant and cloud-based, so doctors can safely review a case in any location, given them what Tripp calls a “virtual clinic” on their iPads. The goal is to make the process user-friendly and efficient for doctors as well as patients.

“Great doctors want to do great medicine, and they’re handcuffed by the technology they have to use,” Tripp said.

Specialists like Dr. Berchuck, director of Gynecologic Cancer Research at Duke University, are already signed up. ConsultingMD offers top doctors the opportunity to review a higher volume of medical cases.

Even in its trial period, physicians were able to access and share opinions on rare cases they might not otherwise have been exposed to. Another draw is the boost in income for top-notch physicians.”As our brand grows, so too will the celebrity of our doctors,” said Tripp.

For patients, it means avoiding flying halfway across the country, or paying exorbitant medical fees for an in-person visit.

ConsultingMD won’t accept just any doctor to its network. “We never went out and perused the phone book for doctors,” Tripp explained. “We made invitations based on recommendations and are getting more in-bound requests each week than we can handle.”

This exclusivity makes sense in light of the business model. Tripp expects the richest and biggest companies like Pepsi and Home Depot to pay for its employees to access ConsultingMD. Large enterprises pay $6 per employee each month; some cases may be covered by insurance. Individuals can also pay for a second opinion – the average cost is $3,750.

“I am a little allergic to the term ‘corporate wellness,” he explains. “I think wellness is something we ought to do as a country.”

But corporations are increasingly offering top-quality and concierge health care to retain employees. An Adecco SA study stipulated that 55 percent of corporate execs view health care benefits as their biggest challenge.

In an interview, Tripp revealed plans for a second product, an online service that helps patients locate and schedule a visit to the top specialist in their area.

“ConsultingMD has decentralized this medical expertise and improves the lives and health of people through technology,” said Roberts, who will join the company’s board.

SAN FRANCISCO — The startup Doximity is commonly referred to as a “Facebook for doctors.” Not anymore. It’s now moving in a new direction: medical education.

The new model came about in collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic, the nonprofit academic medical center. Cleveland Clinic has agreed to offer credit to practicing physicians who use Doximity to learn on the job.

The goal is to move continuing medical education, known as “CME,” to an online space so that it’s not confined to auditoriums and conference halls.

“Doctors spend about 40 hours a year to get accredited and 90 percent of physician education happens offline,” said Doximity CEO Jeff Tangney said. “This is time spent away from practice, not to mention administrative time needed to track the courses they’ve completed. It’s a pain. This platform will make it easier for doctors to track all these credits and automatically keep them up-to-date.”

CME refers to the practice of physicians learning about new areas of the field, and staying on top of the latest research. In the past, doctors have needed to travel to a remote auditorium; now they can access cutting-edge research from a smartphone device.

The news was announced today onstage at VentureBeat’s HealthBeat conference. Prior to founding Doximity to cater to the next generation of tech-savvy physicians, Tangney was the founder of Epocrates, a Bay Area company that develops mobile health applications.

Tangney said the result will be that doctors can save “precious time and reduce the burden of paperwork.” In addition, Doximity will help physicians track everything they’ve learned.

Doximity’s new service offers relevant medical research to its community of registered physicians — about 170,000 and growing. The company’s existing suite of secure HIPPA-compliant collaboration tools will enable doctors to share and discuss cases.

San Mateo, Calif.-based Doximity is one of the fastest growing digital health startups; it recently closed a $17 million series B round led by Morgenthaler Ventures. During a fireside chat with Rebecca Lynn, a partner at Morgenthaler Ventures, Tangey said that doctors “get a bad rap” when it comes to technology, but they were the first adopters of pagers and Palm Pilots. Doctors are busy and on-the-go, and they need solutions that fit into their workflow.

“Our goal is to make medical communication effortless, as easy as it is for the rest of us to shoot an email or text to a friend,” Tangney said. “We’ve gone a great job of digitizing health information, but not of making it easy to access. We can take the technology the teenagers have in the waiting room and give it to the physicians and specialists seeing them in the exam room.”

Twenty-four percent of physicians in the U.S. use Doximity, and the system sends 20,000 secure messages a day. Tangney said that the secure 1-to-1 messaging has “really blossomed” because it saves doctors time by giving them the information they need, when they need it. The new CME platform has a similar goal. Ultimately, the more time doctors save on the “other stuff,” the more bandwidth they have for patients.

When asked a question from an audience member about making Doximity available for nurse practitioners, Tangney said that it is something they are considering. Nurse practitioners, like doctors, also need more effective methods to communicate with each other about patients. Tangney also teased another major partnership down the road.

Photo credit: Michael O’Donnell/VentureBeat 

Want to call your doctor but can’t abide that awful 1970s call center system and the hour-long wait?

Patients need a better way to communicate with their physicians, and Ringadoc believes it can help. Investors agree; the San Francisco-based startup added another $700,000 to its seed round today, bringing its total funding to $1.9 million.

Startups like One Medical are taking on some of the biggest challenges in health care. But sometimes the right approach is to start small and focus on one specific problem. Ringadoc is laser-focused on building simple tech to bridge the communication gap between doctors and patients.

Ringdoc helps doctors separate personal and professional messages, and enables them to triage patients before speaking to them on the phone or in person. In addition, physicians can access after-hours calls on a smartphone or tablet device anytime through the answering service.

Ringadoc initially developed and launched an app that let patients record video messages ahead of a virtual visit with a physician. But the company has dropped video for now and shifted to phone consultations.

“Ringadoc reduces the human error associated with costly answering services and live operators by allowing the doctor to hear the patient’s issue in their own voice and words,” said CEO and co-founder Jordan Michaels (pictured above, right, with co-founder Micah Grossman).

Michaels said that conversations between patients and doctors are “an instrumental part of the health care conversation” and were “previously overlooked.”

The company claims its cloud-based answering service has now successfully handled over 100,000 calls for practices across the country. The business model is also clear and simple; Ringadoc charges physicians $49 per month.

Investors include Ryan Howard, CEO of Practice Fusion, Sharon Knight, co-founder of One Medical, the chain of concierge primary care practices, Siemer Ventures, Telegraph Hill Group, and Dr. Lyle Dennis, the neurology chief at Bon Secours Health System.

So you’ve developed a cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) or medical device that will drastically change the way we deliver health care.

Just a few years ago, you may have faced a prolonged struggle to gain investment. Practice Fusion CEO Ryan Howard, CEO of Practice Fusion, one of the more dynamic new EHR companies, recalls having to use the cash from a motorcycle accident to pay the salaries of key employees. But by 2009 when the Obama administration calling for doctors to shift to electronic health records, investors saw opportunity.

Today, investors are rushing to invest in digital health.  This will be a “record year” for investment in the health care, Rock Health recently predicted. The research shows an uptick in deals in the first quarter of the year and an increase in venture capital.

But will the elite venture capital firms open their check books for you? With our inaugural health conference HealthBeat coming up next Monday and Tuesday (it’s almost sold out, but you may be able to get a ticket still if you move fast), I caught up with Sequoia Capital‘s Warren Hogarth, and Morgenthaler Ventures‘ Missy Krasner to dig deeper into their digital health investment thesis.

VentureBeat: What’s the primary area of health that you’re currently interested in? What’s the future?

Warren Hogarth: One of the key areas is bioinformatics. It’s everything that is enabled by cheap genome sequencing. We’ve made about a half dozen investments to date in the U.S. and Asia. We have also taken a keen interest in the consumer side and health IT. These new technologies will play a role in engaging people in their health in a complete way.

Morgenthaler’s executive in residence, Missy Krasner.

Missy Krasner: A sister theme would be “big data” analytics and business intelligence in health care. There is a tremendous amount of interest in sucking data out of health records and mining data from clinical performance.

Hogarth: We’re talking now about the microbiome, not just the genome. We’re understanding that the microbiome interplays with our health, and we’re seeing a new opportunity for non-invasive treatment and testing.

VentureBeat: Have you addressed the ethical concerns around mining data about the human body?

Hogarth: Patients will have choice and control when it comes to their data. Hopefully, we’ll overcome some of the concerns about the broad misuse of data. The trick is to do it in a de-identified way with a clear process.

Krasner: And in 2014, medical underwriting will be banned so patients won’t be rated based on preexisting conditions. [Medical underwriting is already prohibited for children. -Ed.]

VentureBeat: Are you buying into this “quantified self” trend? Is it empowering for patients to have access to all this data about their health?

Hogarth: I think it’s empowering. I just had my genome sequenced, and my doctor was able to use that information to make a decision regarding my health. Companies like Jawbone are taking reams of data and surfacing it to a physician in a meaningful way.

Krasner: I spent five years at Google Health trying to get patients to engage. We tracked some of the early adopters of Basis, BodyMedia (recently acquired by Jawbone), and other great activity trackers. But there are a couple things that still need to happen. The data that is collected needs to actually be put into nuggets that are actionable. We need to take this data and figure out how to use smart algorithms to provide usable clinical insights. Otherwise we’ll get alert fatigue.

Hogarth: We need to go beyond the “chronically worried well.” We need to make an impact on people who are obese.

Krasner: I did some interesting research by signing up for Weight Watchers. I went to the meetings and subscribed to the mobile product, the device that helps you count activity. It’s a great program but we are still in the stage where patients have to record what they’re eating and put manual data into the app. The next piece of technology will automatically know my patterns. We’ll see a fantastic amount of adoption.

[Editor's note: Krasner will moderate a panel at HealthBeat on the "death" of the personal health record (PHR). That's different from the Electronic Health Record (EHR), which is alive and well and seeing serious innovation. Also at HealthBeat, we'll have executives of the major disruptor EHR companies speaking, from Practice Fusion's Ryan Howard, to the leaders of CareCloud and AthenaHealth).

VentureBeat: Are there areas that you wouldn't invest in?

Hogarth: We don't invest in drug discovery or medical devices that are pre-FDA approval. [Venture capitalists say it's a nuclear winter for medical devices. Read more on that here. -Ed.] It’s too risky, and there is a lack of control. When it comes to devices, I would love to see a culture where things happen in a timely manner.

VentureBeat: What’s the one big health care transformation that you’re most excited about?

Krasner: The one area we haven’t talked about is the new insurance models for health. Patients are being asked to pay more out of pocket than ever before. That whole wave is forcing people to think much harder about where they go. There is no transparency around quality and price. There is a big opportunity here.

Hogarth: We will see a big transformation with employee sponsored healthcare — we’ll see businesses not offering insurance. You’ll shop and make a decision about health care based on price. We’re looking hard at startups that consumerize this experience.

Meet and mingle with health investors at HealthBeat, VentureBeat’s conference in San Francisco on May 20 and 21. Partners from Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Norwest Venture partners, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield Beyers will speak on a panel “Health IT: The Numbers, The Funding, The Exits,” about the drivers making this industry segment more appealing to investors. 

photo credit: Emmanuel Gadenne via photopin cc

Josh Stevens is CEO of corporate wellness company Keas. 

[Editor's note: Stevens Comcast Ventures' Michael Yang will be debating the topic of educating employees on health benefits at HealthBeat 2013 next week. See Yang's story: "Health assistants can make patients smarter and employees healthier."]

I have met with over 200 enterprises in the last year. About half did not provide PCs, smartphones or Internet access to their employees. At first, this may not come as a surprise, because many roles in corporate America do not require online access to “do the job.”

However, a lack of online access to help employees enroll for benefits, change their healthcare plan or modify their 401K means that employees are far less likely to use or even be aware of the benefits they have. This digital divide hurts the employees and the company they work for.

This is particularly true when it comes to health care. The companies I visit with are self-insured, paying for their employees’ healthcare. When I visit with a CEO, CFO, or CHRO, it’s usually to consult and help the company drive up employee participation in and use of the health and wellness benefits available to them.

When I ask, “How many of your employees have email and online access?” the conversation usually gets awkward as the employer realizes that many employees who are eligible for benefits don’t have effective online access to understand and use them.

A number of enterprise employers are still communicating with digitally unconnected employees via posters in the cafeteria like they did a decade ago.

Why is this a problem?

Those who have online access have access to tools and resources about how to improve their health and lower their risk factors. Those who don’t are left in the dark and may therefore be at higher risk.

Today, the average American self-insured employer pays $10,000 for an employee’s health care per year. Seventy percent of that amount, or $7,000, is absolutely preventable. But that that requires an effective wellness and prevention program.

Our estimate for the cost of getting employees online is about $100 per employee per year.

Netted against the $7,000 of health costs that can be prevented, the investment is well worth the opportunity — up to a 70x return.

Company-wide initiatives, such as biometric screenings and HRAs to lower healthcare costs, can’t achieve meaningful impact if the most basic communications can’t reach the workforce.  Those unconnected and at risk are blue-collar workers — kitchen staff, drivers and janitors — who often comprise a large part of a company’s workforce.

Here are five tips for designing and implementing company-wide information access systems that reach everyone in the organization:

1. Understand that access is key
   Company-wide should mean company-wide. Ensuring communication reaches every employee is essential. That may mean putting a smartphone, tablet, or mobile device in the hand of every worker.

2. Develop a plan to get connected
   Determine the best online program to implement and the best strategic approach for rolling it out to everyone in the organization. Create a detailed roadmap and assess possible barriers to widespread adoption.

3. Provide hands-on interactive education
   Engage the workforce with inclusive classes and step-by-step instruction. Make it fun, get people interested, foster group involvement so everyone can learn the same way and understand what the benefits are.

4. Find applications that are easy to deploy
   Program upgrades and enhancements must be simple to roll out company-wide in a timely way.

5. Provide tracking and reporting to see where it’s gaining traction
   Have a program that tracks progress in a clear and compelling way, and decode that data to identify best practices and areas for improvement.

photo credit: Seattle Municipal Archives via photopin cc

While there’s a lot of talk about how Google Glass could one day find use in hospitals, hackers are creating that future today.

A group of programmers has created an app for Glass that doctors could use to pull up patient files just by looking at their faces. The app, dubbed MedRefGlass, is still in its early stages, but it showcases a potential future for Glass that’s not just interesting but also extremely useful.

“Some people I talked to said hospitals are full of very busy people, often with their hands full, working with a lot of information — so Google Glass making it wearable is especially looked forward to there,” Lance Nanek, one of MedRefGlass creators, said on his blog.

In addition to face recognition, MedRefGlass also enables doctors to create patient folders by voice, take photos, and add voice notes.  The future of hospitals, it seems, is (mostly) hands-free.

Watch the video below to get a better idea of how the app works.

Photo: Jolie O’Dell/VentureBeat

Healthfundr is an equity-based crowdfunding platform for health startups. The site provides accredited investors with opportunities to invest in a selection of curated companies working on digital health, health IT, and diagnostic and medical devices.

The JOBS Act and the Affordable Care Act are dramatically changing regulations surrounding crowdfunding and healthcare. Crowdfunding has changed the venture capital landscape and startups in all sectors are using this method to raise  funding. The landscape for health investment is also changing. Funding soared for health IT and digital health companies in 2012, while money continued to lag for life sciences and medical device companies.

CEO Jared Iverson is a former securities attorney with experience working for a pharmaceutical company. He founded Healthfundr in response to shifts he observed in both industries.

“The company is rooted in a desire to see more innovation and capital around health and medical innovation,” he said in an interview with VentureBeat. “A lot of capital goes to areas that are easier to understand or have less regulation, and I’d love to see this sector become more mainstream. This is an area that has a huge impact on quality of life.”

Healthfundr is only open to accredited investors. As of today’s launch, it features three vetted companies that are looking to raise capital. Unlike other equity-based crowdfunding sites like TheFundersClub or CircleUp, Healthfundr works with later stage companies that already have traction and are looking to raise larger amounts. Iverson said there is no shortage of seed funding or later stage capital for health companies, but many struggle to receive first rounds of institutional funding. Healthfundr is meant to be a place where companies that have traction in the market can raise growth capital of a few million dollars.

“Health startups often have to overcome regulatory hurdles and require a higher degree of sophistication and more capital from investors,” said Iverson. “One of the unique difficulties is getting investors to follow-on. We want to fill this hole by being selective about the companies we choose so investors feel more confident in their ability to carry out due diligence.”

Healthfundr is a registered broker-dealer and will take a small portion of the capital raise, either in the form of equity or cash compensation. Iverson’s ultimate goal is to become the main hub for health and medical technology deals and drive funding and interest into this space.

There are four major players in the fitness wristband business now: FitBit, Jawbone, Nike, and Basis. They’re jockeying prices and features to get your dollars, but sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. That’s why we’ve created the chart above to help you take the leap.

You should consider three major categories when choosing one of these geek-chic exercise buddies: price, device, and battery life.

Right now, the FitBit Flex is the cheapest, coming in at around $100, followed by the Up at $130, the FuelBand at $150, and Basis at $200. There are, of course, tradeoffs. The Flex can’t tell when you’re on an incline, and while Basis is twice as much, it can monitor other elements such as your sweat and heart rate.

Indeed, the Basis might seem expensive and pared-down on the chart, but it focuses more on what’s going on inside your body than the others. An optical sensor can detect your blood flow, which means Basis can watch your heart rate throughout the day. It also measures your skin temperature and sweat levels, bringing all of this information together to gauge the intensity of your activities. It also plans on releasing mobile apps soon, with Android coming first.

On the device front, if you’re an Android user, however, you’re probably not going to want the FuelBand. It’s only iOS compatible, and it seems Nike has no plans to come out with an Android version. Flex, Up, and Basis provide Android support, but only for some devices.

When it comes to which band can outlast the rest, Up comes in as the winner with its advertised battery life at 10 days. Flex follows behind with five days of battery life and FuelBand with only one to four days. Of course, these times will all depend on your usage, which may include sleeping, as both Up and Flex monitor your sleep patterns and will wake you up with an alarm. Basis will track your sleep, but you’ll have to rely on another device to get your butt out of bed.

You can also hook up your wristbands to a number of apps. While Up and Flex support many fitness apps such as MyFitnessPal and LoseIt!, FuelBand focuses on the social side with connections to Facebook, Twitter, and Path.

Of course, your decision will depend on what matters most to you. Is it the science? The cool charts and analysis on your daily activities? The price or battery life? Let us know which you choose and why you love it (or hate it).

Health Q&A startup HealthTap has raised $24 million in its second round of funding and added former Square COO Keith Rabois to its board of directors, the company said today.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based HealthTap offers a popular service for doctors to answer questions from everyday folks. More than 38,000 accredited doctors in the U.S. are on the platform and more than 8 million unique visitors connect with those doctors each month via apps for smartphones, tablets, and the web.

HealthTap founder and CEO Ron Gutman told VentureBeat that the average doctor on the platform uses the app a crazy “69 minutes per session.” Doctors get hooked so easily because the app provides a way to put their names out there, attract more patients, and compete to answer questions.

“A large number of doctors use the app every single day,” Gutman said. “I think many of them do it because they are good people.”

HealthTap does not make any money off its robust network at present. Gutman says the company could be profitable today if he simply allowed advertising across the applications. But he’s forgoing advertising with the promise that the apps will eventually facilitate digital doctor appointments, which could be extremely lucrative.

“We want to provide access to care,” Gutman said. “25 percent of doctor visits are just exchanges of information. We want to take over those appointments … and we will charge less than a traditional visit.”

The new funding was led by Khosla Ventures, with participation by prior investors Mayfield Fund and Mohr Davidow Ventures. Including the new funding, HealthTap has raised about $38 million to date. Its previous round totaled $11.5 million.

Having Rabois onboard to help the company will come in handy since he’s known for helping early companies grow and become successful. He previously worked for PayPal, LinkedIn, and Slide. Following a rough departure from mobile payments startup Square, Rabois became a VC at Khosla Ventures. Vinod Khosla himself will also join HealthTap as “an adviser.”

HealthTap was founded in 2010 and has just over 30 employees. The new funding will allow it to hire aggressively. Gutman specifically said he plans to hire workers for “big data, engineering, product, design, and health informatics.” Looking forward, Gutman also said he’d like to take the service global, but the focus will remain on the U.S. in the near term.

Photo via HealthTap

Chris Hollindale is cofounder and CTO of seed-funded stealth startup Hasty.

If you’ve ever tried out a Nike+ FuelBand, a Jawbone UP, or apps like RunKeeper or Strava for runners and cyclists, the chances are that you’ve seen the powerful effects that gamification can have.

Gamification is an effective mechanism that taps into our naturally competitive instinct to help change our behavior. And in the case of health and fitness apps, this change of behavior means real lifestyle changes, enabling us to be fitter and healthier.

But is this gamification being applied to the right health metrics? Could it be applied to areas that have even more of a positive health impact?

In the health and fitness space, the best examples of gamification are those employed by the likes of Nike+, Jawbone and FitBit’s tracking devices. Statistical and anecdotal evidence shows how effective the gamification is here – FitBit reports that its users take 43 percent more steps. But is tracking your steps  – which is ultimately what these devices do — actually all that good for you?

I’d argue that there are many more important metrics when it comes to living better and healthier, and this is where the future of health gamification will lie.

An interesting possibility is applying gamification to real health metrics. Services like WellnessFX now allow consumers to evaluate all manner of data points about themselves, from nutrient levels to cholesterol and testosterone. Being able to measure and improve these core health metrics is a huge leap, and I can see exciting applications of gamification applying here in the future. It could be that you’re able to create and compete with your own personal wellness score based on a variety of health metrics.

Or … even try to beat your mate’s level of testosterone – the ultimate “who’s the bigger man?” competition.

Of the metrics that people currently track, the one that has the most overall impact is food. Gamification has the potential to have a huge impact on the way we eat and the choices we make when it comes to food, and this can make a monumental impact in terms of our collective health.

If I earned a badge for eating well during the day, or was competing with a friend to see who could stick to a diet the longest, I would be way more incentivized to persevere and eat well. The problem standing in the way is that currently, tracking is hard: it’s simply not automatic enough.

But if that were to be resolved, the applications of gamification to food tracking become really interesting. Fooducate is a good example of gamification already being applied to food – by scanning barcodes, it grades the groceries that you buy to encourage you to eat better.

And Google Glass has the potential to fundamentally change the way we track and gamify health.

Imagine being able to track and gamify your statistics for any sport – like what your shot accuracy was in your latest tennis game – or having Google Glass automatically read the stats off your bike machine at the gym. And how about creating a proper augmented reality experience for exercise – extending the idea created by the Zombies, Run! smartphone app, your morning run could be turned into all manner of videogame-style scenarios, from escaping zombie hoards to chasing down one of your friends.

And its tracking applications will go way beyond physical health – it could even be used to track and gamify the number of words you spoke during the day, or the number of social interactions you had.

There are many opportunities for new applications of gamification in these areas. As a final thought, suppose Google Glass could record all the food you ate, the portion sizes and how much food you left on your plate. Suddenly, you’d have cracked the food-tracking problem and you’d have a massive opportunity to gamify and fix our increasing battle with preventable, diet-related health problems.

Photo credit: Chris Chabot/Google

MindMixer’s founders are on a mission to inspire citizen engagement, particularly around important social issues like education and health care. ”We would see only ten or fifteen people attend public meetings, and thought it was an issue of convenience, not apathy,” said cofounder Nick Bowden [right] in an interview.

Today, the startup closed a $4 million funding round to expand its current set of services and tools, as well as hire developers.

The Omaha Nebraska-based founders say the technology is now used by hundreds of clients — primarily civic groups, health organizations, nonprofits and a few corporations — to communicate more effectively with their desired audiences. MindMixer says it has experienced 40 percent growth quarter-over-quarter since its inception.

The company has come a long way since 2010 when urban planning experts Nathan Preheim [left] and Bowden launched an initial product to connect community members in online forums with municipalities.

To bolster its ability to engage audiences on social media, MindMixer made its first acquisition of VoterTide in March. VoterTide is a social media intelligence startup that engages audiences around hot issues for political campaigns, non-profits, and special interest groups.

Among its most high-profile customers, the team is currently working with city of San Francisco for an initiative dubbed “ImproveSF” (the most recent project is a virtual town hall meeting). MindMixer’s technology is also utilized by the D.C. public school district, Ohio State University and ed-tech startup Coursera.

“The city of San Francisco issues a monthly challenge — to engage locals, they launched a challenge to redesign public library cards, and are looking for ways to provide access to healthy food in the Tenderloin district,” Bowden explained in a phone interview.

The funding round was led by Nelnet with existing investors Dundee Venture Capital and Optimas Group also participating.

To learn more about MindMixer, check out the video below.

New York doctor appointments startup ZocDoc has seen relatively good traction in the U.S., but it is not available in other countries. So it makes sense that international startups similar to ZocDoc have emerged.

Case in point: KelDoc, a young French startup that books doctor and dentist appointments online, has just nabbed €700,000 ($913,010) in funding from Alven Capital.

KelDoc co-founder Eduardo Ronzano told VentureBeat that the average waiting time to see a doctor in France is between one week and six months. This has led to a substantial rise in people searching for information online about other doctors in the area and trying to book appointments faster.

“KelDoc provides a new service for patients in France whereby they can instantly access all necessary information about a doctor and then book their appointments 24/7 without needing to ring up the practice,” Ronzano said via email. “Doctors see KelDoc as a way to fill in the empty slots in their agenda [and] a way to cut back on hours of unnecessary phone calls.”

KelDoc’s initial focus will be on singing up dentists in highly concentrated urban areas. It is only available in Paris today, but Ronzano says the company will eventually expand to other European cities “in the coming months.”

The funding will go toward hiring new members for its sales and technical teams to help it expand more quickly.

Photo via KelDoc

Cloud storage startup Box is pushing into the health care vertical, regulatory challenges and all.

Box’s team has spent a year researching the space and ensuring that the product is HIPPA compliant. The team is aware of the challenges reaching the target market — physicians and health administrators have tread carefully with it comes to new cloud-based technology.

“We want Box to be the cloud solution to manage all content in the health care sector,” said Box CEO Aaron Levie (pictured, above) in a phone interview. Levie lists myriad use cases; physicians can use Box to access your medical information from their iPads, and researchers can use its collaboration tools to share sensitive information.

In fact, over the past year, box sales in the health care industry grew 81 percent. The company claims to have hundreds of customers in this sector, including  Henry Ford Health System, Beaumont Health System, HealthTrust Europe, and Johns Hopkins HealthCare Solutions.

In the past, the most sensitive records were stored on film, tape, and paper charts. But as data gets digitized, hospitals, physician practice groups, software and hardware companies, consulting firms, and affiliated health care organizations are grappling with how to keep it secure.

However, a positive sign for cloud vendors is that doctors and health administrators routinely use tools like Google Drive, Box, and Dropbox in their personal lives but do not use these tools to share patient information. Security breaches at hospitals are an ongoing problem.

For this reason, Levie sees a major opportunity for a highly-secure cloud company to succeed in the health industry. “Basic file sharing is very challenged,” he explained.

And with a health care push in mind, Box made a strategic investment in DrChrono, a tablet-friendly electronic medical record (EMR) provider, and is working closely with the team. This is just one of many partnerships the company expects to strike with health care IT vendors. Other current partners include Medigram, TigerText, Doximity, and HealthTap.

The company has also brought on Missy Krasner, Morgenthaler Ventures’ executive in residence, who was one of the founding members of Google Health. Krasner said a “simple and elegant solution” like Box is often optimal for doctors; a lesson she learned at Google.

“Doctors want the ease and simplicity and horizontal nature of tools like Box and Google Drive,” Levie said in agreement.

Box is also exploring other verticals, such as financial services. While it does not intend to build a full vertical solution for health, it hopes developers and partners will want to team up and use Box’s platform to build more sophisticated applications and tools.

Aaron Levie photo via Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

Interested in learning more about how cloud companies can jump into health care? Aaron Levie is a keynote speaker at our upcoming HealthBeat conference on May 20 and 21. 

Paypal cofounder Peter Thiel doesn’t shy away from making risky bets in disruptive technology and research.

Today, the Thiel Foundation announced it would grant $350,000 to two of Breakout Labs’ teams: SkyPhrase and Stealth Biosciences. Both startups are working to bridge the gap between technology and the biological sciences.

SkyPhrase is working on making computers understand human language with greater precision. It’s creating a platform to search, access, and monitor data that relies on natural language processing. The company is already viewed as a potential competitor to Apple’s Siri, which struggles to understand complex-language questions.

Stealth Biosciences is developing a device that can exert control over biological processes at the level of single cells. The technology is the brainchild of Stanford University professors Nick Melosh and Craig Garner. These devices could be a new toolset for research and diagnostic applications; it will initially use the funding to develop a “Nanostraw” device that can reprogram human T-cells for the purposes of cancer therapy.

Thiel is funneling the millions he made through early investments in Facebook, Yammer, and Yelp into potentially life-saving research. Through the nonprofit Breakout Labs, which was founded in 2011 and received financing through the Thiel Foundation, he kick-starts ideas that most traditional venture capitalists wouldn’t touch.

Last year, Breakout Labs’ funded a dozen startups, including a venture to produce bioengineered animal products — lab-grown meat — with about $4.5 million. Breakout Labs awards grants from $50 to 350,000 on a rolling basis, but the funded companies retain their intellectual property.

Many of the companies admitted into Breakout Labs go on to win government and academic grants, and many of the founders are university professors. This reflects “a growing and much welcome interest from the academic community in commercialization,” said Breakout Labs executive director Lindy Fishburne.

Peter Thiel image via Kenneth Yeung/Flickr

SAN FRANCISCO- Demo Mobile kicked off this morning with presentations from four mobile health startups. Each of these companies is applying mobile technology to the medical field to give people more control over their bodies, or to streamline the clinical process for physicians.

“Mobile computing is just getting bigger and bigger,” said Demo’s executive producer Erick Schonfeld in an interview before the event. “In health, it started with quantified-self applications, but now we are seeing real medical applications for patients and doctors that are really dedicating to improve alienate and doctor outcomes. They show mobile devices could be a partial answer to the healthcare crisis.”

Nurep

The first company to present was Nurep. Nurep provides medical device support for physicians in the operating room.

“It allows medical device representatives to see more physicians, increase their sales, cover broader geography while traveling less, and it guarantees physicals 24/7 support in the operating room,” founder and CEO Paul Schultz said on stage.

Schultz said there are 50 million support requests a year for medical devices, and the typical rep can only cover 500 cases annually. However, new procedures are best conducted with expert guidance. This is where Nurep steps in. During a procedure, a doctor can request on-demand virtual assistance from medical device representatives. The call acts like a “sonar,” sending out a call until it connects with live support directly in the operating room.

When doctors work with medical devices (such as pacemakers) they traditionally rely on product manuals, previous training and experience, and/or their colleagues for help. Medical device representatives are supposed to provide their expertise, however cost pressures from hospitals, a new medical device tax, and declining reimbursement has caused a decrease in the number of reps, and thus their ability to support physicians. Nurep seeks to bridge this gap.

Wellframe

The second company to present was Wellframe. Wellframe is a “digital concierge” that guides patients with chronic disease through their treatment. Every year, tens of millions of patients are discharged from hospitals without personalized, day-to-day plans for their treatment. This often leads to complications and is expensive for hospitals, insurance companies, and patients alike.

Founder Jacob Sattelmair said during his presentation that Wellframe has developed a system that combines mobile technology with machine learning to support patients towards optimal recovery.

“We translated clinical protocols into personalize, adaptive to-do lists, to simplify the day-to-day of overcoming heart disease,” he said.

The first product targets cardiac patients, who can use the system instead of regularly going on inconvenient or pricey follow-up visits. Tasks are activities like taking medication or getting 15 minutes of light exercise, and the app also connects patients with nurses, case managers, and educational videos when they need it. Meanwhile, Wellframe collects all of the data which medical centers and providers can use to improve treatment.

KinectHealth

While the first two companies target healthcare providers, KinectHealth is a product for people looking to get more exercise. This application serves as a mobile fitness studio. During his presentation, founder Bob Summer said that the technology has three elements to eliminate excuses- it offers “great workouts,” provides biometric feedback, and there are online workout buddies to make the exercise more social and fun. Using a camera, people looking to exercise can choose a particular type of work out, like yoga, dance, or weight lifting. Summer brought a popular YouTube personal trainer named Amanda Russell on stage to demo the application and share her experience.

“YouTube has become this disorganized abyss,” she said. “My videos have received 3 million views and I have 65,000 loyal subscribes, but YouTube doesn’t have the same curation or the ability to track your progress and see results in real time. This is the next generation of online fitness.”

Right now, KinectHealth is only available for Windows 8 and can be connected to an Xbox. The motion sensor tracks calories burned and provides the user with insight into how hard they are working out and track their progress. Startups like Wello, GAIN, iPersonalTrainer, and Skimble operate in a similar space.

Kinsa

Kinsa was the final company to present in the health category. The company makes a smart thermometer that seeks to monitor and precent the spread of disease. Founder and CEO Inder Singh announced the launch of an Indiegogo campaign today to help achieve the goal of creating a “real-time map of human health.”

“Kinsa is moving to get info we need to get our families and neighborhoods healthy. We want to individuals the information they need to stay healthy, and help society to track and stop the spread of illness,” he said. If we succeed, we will create a system where data saves lives.”

The Kinsa thermometer takes temperature and then prompts users with cute little icons to list their other symptoms, such as fatigue, cough, cold, or headache. The accompanying application tells you how to avoid getting ill, or how to get better faster if you are already sick. Data is trackable overtime on a simple dashboard and people can immediately connect to clinics, nurses, or urgent care facilities. Furthermore, Singh said that the app has an “illness forecasting feature” that tells you when you (or your kid) is likely to be contagious and get better.

Kinsa also connects this personal data with the outside world. Parents can check the illness at their children’s school and also see the “health weather” in their city. The price is comparable to high-quality thermometers, but Singh said the more that gets raised on Indiegogo, the lower the price point will be.

Digital health is a new and exciting frontier. In 2012, venture capital funding of this sector grew dramatically, with 46 percent more money and 56 percent more deal volume than in 2011. At the same time, mobile technology is literally taking over the world. When these two forces combine, the options are exciting and endless.
The ability of mobile technology to impact healthcare is one of the topics discussed at HealthBeat, VentureBeat’s upcoming health conference.

Photo Credit: The DEMO Conference

Should human genes be patented? The Supreme Court is weighing in today in a landmark case,  Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 12-398., that will have an enormous impact on the future of science, technology, and medicine.

At the center of the debate is Utah-based Myriad Genetics. Scientists at the biotech company discovered two genes — BRCA 1 and BRCA2 — that are associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. Since then, it claims its tests have been used by more than one million women to determine if they have an increased risk of developing these cancers.

The company patented these discoveries — the “synthetic molecules we isolated and created in the lab to provide life-saving tests,” the company’s CEO explained in an op-ed in USAToday.

But Nobel Prize-winning geneticists argue that the patent will stifle research and medical diagnostic testing. Because of its patents, Myriad can prevent other researchers from testing, studying, or even looking at these genes, and it also holds the exclusive rights to any mutations along those genes, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The U.S. patent system’s rules stipulate that you can’t patent a product of nature or a law of nature, even if research took years and proved costly. For this reason, Albert Einstein did not patent the law of relativity.

A parallel can be made with a rare East African plant, which has a variety of medicinal uses. It might be plausible to patent a drug that comes from the plant, but it would be unreasonable to patent the plant.

“Over the past 20 years, at least 41 percent of our genes have become the intellectual property of corporations,” genomics professors Christopher E. Mason and Jeffrey Rosenfeld argue on the ACLU’s blog. “These patent claims contradict an intuitive sense that our DNA is no less ours than our lungs or kidneys,” they continue. The ACLU also claims that the patent has allowed Myriad to charge patients exorbitant rates for its test.

Until recently, the medical profession largely shunned patents. A favorite quote that has been liberally used by Myriad’s opponents is from Dr. Jonas Salk, who invented the polio vaccine. Rather than file a patent on the vaccine, he reportedly said, “There is no patent … could you patent the sun?”

Dietrich Stephan led a research team that identify the genetic causes for Autism, ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, and more.

Human geneticist Dietrich Stephan says he’s been following this debate closely since 2006. Stephan is the cofounder of Navigenics, a genetics diagnostics company acquired by Life Technologies Corp. in 2012. Stephan agrees with the ACLU, and is concerned that patenting genes will be detrimental to patients.

“You should be able to give patients gene sequencing information that will benefit their health,” he said in an interview. “Patents may prevent that.”

According to Stephan, the likelihood of the Supreme Court siding with Myriad Genetics is low. Myriad will still own the brand and have the highest-precision test in the market. So even if three competitors emerged tomorrow, Myriad will still out-perform in sales.

“Even so — competition is a good thing,” he asid. Collaboration is another issue as many of these genes will be used together to form the basis of a test — “more and more it’s not a single gene that is diagnostic,” said Stephan.

Efrat Kasznik, an intellectual property lecturer at Stanford University, said the patent system offers inventors a limited monopoly (20 years from filing) in return for public disclosure for their innovation. But not every finding can be patented. Similarly to a mathematical equation, the Supreme Court may rule that our human genes can never be owned.

Dietrich Stephan will speak at HealthBeat, VentureBeat’s upcoming healthcare and innovation conference in San Francisco on May 20-21. 

Top image via Shutterstock 

Started a health-tech company? Apply for the Innovation Showdown at HealthBeat 2013 in San Francisco by April 19.

Facebook and Twitter are not the appropriate venues to share that your back is feeling achy or that your bowel is acting up.

Launching today, HealthKeep is a place for people to post about their everyday aches and pains and ask the community about potential symptom relievers. Unlike Facebook, it’s completely anonymous (rightfully so), so you won’t need to hide the gory or embarrassing details.

“People love to share about their health, but because of privacy issues, they shouldn’t use Facebook,” said founder Lyle Dennis (pictured, above) by phone. Sign up for a profile, and you’ll be asked about previous surgeries and procedures, as well as your date of birth, but your name will never be requested.

The site was founded by Dennis, a physician, a neurologist and self-described technofuturist. Dennis has been developing the site with a technical cofounder for over three years, so its database is fairly extensive: The site has profiles for every practicing physician in the country, which those physicians can “claim.”

Once a physician claims their profile, they can use the site to interact with patients and share resources, including medical discoveries and relevant articles. HealthKeep plugs into about 50 mainstream news sources, so it’s easy to share information.

For patients, it’s a means to interact with a community with similar health issues and keep a record of symptoms. If you post that you’ve developed a rash, this will remain on your “health timeline” and might be useful for your primary care physician to track.

HealthKeep’s user community is still small, as the founders haven’t done much marketing, but the company hopes to eventually compete with WebMD or HealthTap, which offers tips and advice from physicians.

I ask Dennis whether he envisions the site being used by hypochondriac types who obsessively monitor their health. “The majority of people assume they have cancer, no matter what the symptoms are,” he observed. “The site might help to allay these fears.”

In the future, Dennis plans to make money through targeted advertising. The site is a self-funded effort, and he hopes to close a seed round of venture or angel financing in the coming months.

Would you use something like this to share information about your health? Leave your feedback in the comments section below. 

Venture firm New Enterprise Associates hopes to find new cures for rare diseases with its latest investment.

Today, the Silicon Valley firm led a $16 million round in Cydan, an accelerator program for ideas, research, and strategic partnerships that would find cures for rare diseases. Cydan specializes in accelerating the commercialization of so-called “orphan drugs” designed to treat these diseases.

Today, there are nearly 7,000 recognized rare diseases affecting nearly 30 million Americans and an estimated 350 million people worldwide. The symptoms will often appear early in life; 75 percent of rare diseases affect children, many of whom do not live past the age of five.

Mainstream medicine has not focused its energies on finding new therapies or diagnostics for thousands of rare diseases. For this reason, the Rare Genomics Institute (RGI) turned to crowdfunding for its research into rare genetic disorders.

But Cydan’s approach is taking inspiration from the tech industry, where med-tech accelerator programs are increasingly common.

“Cydan is taking a new approach to drug development – one that takes advantage of recent scientific breakthroughs in rare diseases and is externally focused, highly collaborative, and capital efficient,” said Cydan CEO Cristina Csimma.

Cambridge Mass.-based Cydan is teaming up with academic centers, patient foundations, and biopharmaceutical companies to identify the most promising rare disease programs and conduct de-risking studies. Among them, the most viable programs will be spun out of the accelerator as startups.

David Mott, a General Partner at NEA said in a statement that the leadership team is expected to “spin out several exciting rare disease companies” and develop innovative therapies to make a real difference in patients’ lives.

Pfizer Venture Investments and Alexandria Real Estate Equities also participated in the round.

Rare disease research via Shutterstock 

Imagine browsing dozens of reviews from past patients before booking a doctor’s appointment — all from a smartphone.

This is the vision for Practice Fusion, a San Francisco-based startup that is best known for its free electronic medical record (EMR). Today, the digital health company is launching a web app for scheduling doctor’s appointments, which will be closely followed by iPhone and Android apps.

“We want to facilitate the entire patient journey and life cycle,” said CEO Ryan Howard. The new consumer-facing technology is known as “Patient Fusion,” and Howard describes it as a “Yelp for doctors.”

We covered Practice Fusion’s history and culture after an office visit. Check out the story here. Howard will be speaking at our upcoming HealthBeat conference.

It’s a strategic move, given that Practice Fusion has already amassed doctor profiles and information about your health, all contained within its EMR. Howard admits that by marketing new products to patients, the company will augment its brand with hospital decision-makers. In a nutshell, Patient Fusion is a smart physician acquisition tool.

Already, Practice Fusion claims it has 3 million open appointments for the month of April alone, more than any of its competition. Roughly half of its user base of doctors have opted in — the app will go live with 27,000 doctors and 1.5 million reviews. These physicians serve an estimated 60 million patients across the U.S.

Patient Fusion is directly competitive with ZocDoc, the New York based scheduling technology that has registered about 30,000 doctors.

According to Howard, it’s still a problem as a third of staff time is spent on “scheduling, and canceling and rescheduling.” Patient Fusion was developed to reduce these inefficiencies, and help patients find an appointment at a well-reviewed doctor nearby.

The app isn’t intended as a monetization stream for the company. But it will be deemed a success if more doctors sign up to the EMR  (the company is going after big pharmaceutical advertising deals).

Another goal is to use patient’s data to help them find the best doctor; if you suffer from diabetes, for instance, the app will begin to prioritize physicians in the search rankings with relevant expertise.

Howard observed in a recent interview that accessing and mining patient information can save lives. “We can recommend drug therapies based on their popularity [with previous patients],” he said, and claims there are 200,000 avoidable deaths a year because “data is simply not shared.”

Practice Fusion pulled in its most recent $34 million funding round in June 2012, and counts PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel among its investors.

If people spent as much time working out as they did on Facebook, let’s just say there would be nary a muffin top or belly bulge in sight.

But this doesn’t mean that social can’t help fitness. The Cody app launched today, taking the compelling aspects of social networking and applying it to exercise.

Cody Inc., the app’s makers, call it a “virtual fitness coach.” Its target audience is the casual exerciser, not hardcore fitness fanatic. The app serves as a digital workout partner to help you keep your motivation and have fun doing it. During an interview with VentureBeat, co-founder Pejman Pour-Moezzi said plenty of fitness apps are out there, and Cody is different because it focuses on the social element, rather than on data such as heart rate or calories burned.

“What we observed that this focus on metrics has gone so far that I think it ends up intimidating a lot of people,” he said. “The social aspect of fitness is what fascinated us — how much motivation, or how compelling fitness gets when you have a workout buddy. It’s a social-first fitness app, so it’s all about connecting and sharing with other people.”

Pour-Moezzi and his cofounder, Paul Javid, formerly worked as product managers at Microsoft and left to create a product to help people achieve their goals. The obvious application was fitness, and they wanted fitness with Cody to feel like sharing a photo on Instagram or posting a Facebook update. The app is highly visual, making it easy to discover, share, and discuss content about health and exercise. Cody will also bring up relevant information based on stated fitness goals. Over time, Pour-Moezzi and Javid hope to integrate location service; for instance, someone wanting to find a kickboxing gym could look at community reviews to find a place that suits their needs.

Cody is free Apple App Store, and the founders aren’t focusing on monetization. Right now, they want to expand adoption and engagement for the app and are considering premium features, such as in-app purchases of yoga videos down the road.

As the owner of a heart rate monitor, I have just one problem with the devices: They’re really, really boring.

But they have bigger problems. Not only are heart rate monitors really dull, but they aren’t particularly helpful either. “We’ve been using heart rate monitors as if they’re telling us anything useful,” says Dustin Freckleton, the president of sports tech company BSX Athletics. (In case it isn’t clear, BSX = “basics.”)

The problem with heart rate monitors, Freckleton says, is that they’re easily thrown off by things that have nothing to do with fitness. Hot day out? Just had a cup of coffee? Stressed? All of these things can spike your heart rate and render monitor readings useless.

Researchers have been pointing out the inadequacies of heart-rate measurements for years now. “The heart rate is probably the least important variable in comparing athletes,” exercise physiologist Fritz Hagerman told The New York Times in 2011.

Athletes are an important factor here. If anyone needs an accurate and useful way to measure their performance, it’s them.

That’s a reality not lost on BSX Athletics, which is working on a sensor that goes beyond the heart rate to measure potentially more useful metabolic parameters like “lactate threshold” and “VO2 max” (whatever those things are). More, that data plugs into apps like BSX Athletics’s runBSX, which tracks and measures users’ information to solve another problem with athletic sensors: their lack of interpretation and relevant recommendations.

One of the problems with smart sensors these days is that while they’re getting really good at measuring raw data like steps and sleep habits, they’re significantly less good at telling you what to do with that data. This is a problem whose fix BSX Athletics has baked into its apps.

“We’re like a doctor reading your x-rays: We take your data, interpret it, and recommend things from it,” says Freckleton.

But those recommendations aren’t coming from an algorithm. Instead of apps like runBSX tap into the knowledge of real coaches, who are able to take an athlete’s data in real-time and create workouts and recommendations around it. This not only solves the relevancy problem (those workouts are, after all, custom) but also it’s the type of thing most coach-less athletes would love to have.

It all sounds really promising – except for the fact that none of it’s available quite yet. While the runBSX app should hit the iTunes Store within the next few weeks, Freckleton says that he doesn’t see the actual sensor component hitting until later this year or early 2014.”We’re releasing the app in advance because we wanted to get people used to the idea of training the right way even without sensors,” Freckleton said. (Without the sensor the app uses a combination of  GPS and accelerometers to measure performance.)

Basically, the idea is to get athletes so addicted to runBSX that they can’t help but buy the sensor when the time comes. Will it work? We’ll know soon enough.

Photo: Running Man/Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Rob Woodbridge is founder of Untether.tv.

I quit smoking 14 years ago this past March.

I can still remember that last pull of my last cigarette and the little jingle that played from my LifeSign smoking cessation computer. I quit smoking because a mobile device told me when to smoke … and when I was done smoking for good.

And it worked.

That was the first time for me that a habit change was brought on by a mobile device — but certainly not the last. Back then the commercial web was emerging, mobile was a distant ripple and the RAZR was the rage. There wasn’t a single smartphone in sight.

Today, when five out of six people on the planet carry a connected device, many habits have already been modified as a result of this pervasive technology. There is a “low-hanging fruit” kind of change that is sweeping through the home as land lines are being dropped in lieu of mobile phones. Parents are debating at what age to buy their kids cell phones.

Smartphones and tablets have hampered our ability to focus on one thing at a time while simultaneously doing serious damage to video game console makers, broadcast television and the entire retail industry.

These changes are macro changes brought on by creating a much more efficient market place — this is the Wal-Mart effect of removing friction from the supply chain. While they seem like habit change, they are really just efficient evolution brought on by technological advancement. Predictable really.

Personal habit change, however is different: It stems from a decision to change something at our core. Like the LifeSign computer I used to commit to quitting smoking, can the new devices in our hands bring about personal habit change to a mass audience?

There are many companies out there who think so.

Getting better sleep

The wearable computer industry is about to be set ablaze.

Companies like Nike, which is reinventing itself as a software/hardware company, FitBit, and Jawbone are leading the “body analytics” movement. These tools are amazing, but they aren’t built for the average person interested in changing one habit. They are built for an audience in tune with their body, but wanting more tangible insights. These devices will have their day but they are too overwhelming and too complicated to affect any serious change in the near future.

Sleep Cycle is an app I’ve been using on my iPhone for the past 150 nights. You launch the app, set the alarm and place your iPhone face down under the fitted sheet on your bed. It uses the accelerometer to determine movement indicating wakefulness (i.e. you are not in REM sleep) around the time you would like to wake up. I’ve noticed an incredible difference in the quality of my sleep and my mood when the alarm does go off and have managed to alter my sleeping patterns to become an early morning person.

The work out streak

There are thousands of apps littering the various app stores focused on physical activity. I know because I’ve paid for 100′s of them already. The one that stuck is an app called Gain Fitness, simply because of a simple motivational feature that none of the other apps that I found used effectively: the workout streak.

What made this one stand out was its simplicity. It doesn’t have prominent social features that rely on peer pressure and isn’t focused on sharing workouts and results — this is much simpler than that. The workout streak counts the number of consecutive workouts that you’ve done.

Period.

If you can’t get to the gym or do a workout that day, too bad, you missed it. You can’t make it up tomorrow, it is just plain gone. At first this seemed as though it was a bug but when I spoke with the founder he said it was being used as a chief motivator and it works.

I’d rather walk

Moves is a new breed of iOS apps that, once launched, remains active but dormant on the device, quietly collecting data.

In the case of Moves, it uses a combination of GPS, cell towers, Foursquare and the built-in accelerometer to determine the number of steps taken during a day (all the computing power is done in the cloud). This isn’t new but the founder and CEO Sampo Karjalainen had a very focused reason for building the app: To increase the health and wellbeing of users by changing walking habits through gamification. He hopes to encourage people to park a little further, walk a little longer and get a little more active all through his app.

The ties that bind

There are thousands of apps in the market place that do any or all of these that I’ve highlighted but the common thread for all of them is the uniquely personal nature of each.

Individual habit change — getting better and deeper sleep or going to the gym more often or walking greater distances — are single action outcomes: what the Persuasive Tech Lab at Stanford University calls a succession of “tiny steps.” While the apps are targeting the general population there is more emphasis on the individual. Single task, outcome based, habit changes that create tangible results while depending the user’s commitment with every deep sleep, weight lifted and step taken.

Perhaps the greatest habit changed is the one that happens when great product function creates incredible loyalty – a habit many companies are trying to change every single day.

photo credit: SeeMidTN.com (aka Brent) via photopin cc

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a charitable organization that you’ve undoubtedly heard mentioned a few hundred times between news segments on NPR — and probably the last group you’d think of when it comes to revolutionary condom inventions.

Still, condom innovation what the Gates Foundation — in partnership with Grand Challenges in Global Health – is the latest cause that the group has decided to fund. The Gates foundation is offering a $100,000 grant to students, scientists, or entrepreneurs that want to create the world’s next-generation condom. Now, before you decide that this is a ridiculous way to spend money, consider that condoms are very important devices that help control the population rate and prevent wide-spread and life-threatening diseases. So, if someone can figure out a way to make people use them more often, it’s generally going to be a positive thing — but not the driving motivation for leading condom manufacturers.

Finding out exactly what a next-gen condom suppose to be is another issue entirely. Gizmodo’s Eric Limer suggested the possibility of force-field condoms, which is sort of genius. Personally, I was personally thinking a little more low-tech, such as condoms that are put on automatically via zipper activation or condoms that administer a shot of 5-hour energy during the act.

Here’s what the Gates Foundation had to say about the innovation end:

Additional concepts that might increase [condom usage] uptake include attributes that increase ease-of-use for male and female condoms, for example better packaging or designs that are easier to properly apply. In addition, attributes that address and overcome cultural barriers are also desired.

Condom photo via Kzenon/Shutterstock

Startup founders often make bold claims about disrupting entire industries. Dr. Tom X. Lee is one such entrepreneur, but in this particular case, his company is already shaping the future of healthcare.

Dr. Lee is the founder and CEO of One Medical Group, a chain of concierge primary care practices operating under the tagline, “The doctor’s office. Reinvented.”

As a long-time customer, I can attest that this marketing speak isn’t an exaggeration. Feeling unwell? Book a same-day appointment online or via a smartphone app at your nearest doctor’s office, show up, fill out a form or two, and you’ll be seen within minutes.

Dr Tom X Lee, One Medical’s CEO

Dr Lee is a physician-turned-entrepreneur who received an MD from the University of Washington and MBA from Stanford University. ”It was pretty clear in my medical training that the goal was to practice old-school medicine,” he said in an interview with VentureBeat.

“I noticed that the system was broken — it was really confusing, patients weren’t happy, doctors weren’t happy,” he explained.

The model proved to resonate with customers, so the group has been opening offices in new markets, including Boston and New York. And today, it just closed its sixth round of funding led by Google Ventures with participation from existing investors, including Benchmark Capital and DAG Ventures.

One Medical may not be a Silicon Valley startup in the traditional sense, but it has embraced technology from the outset. Patients can use a mobile app to schedule an appointment or refill a prescription, or chat with a doctor via instant message. For this reason, it has been an attractive option for Silicon Valley’s tech investors, and has raised $77 million to date.

Dr. Lee spent six months undercover to root out the biggest flaws with the current system. He worked in a large and unnamed primary care practice in various occupations, including nurse, administrator, physician and secretary. During that time, he learned that doctors are “overburdened” with personel, and held back by paper-based systems.

“What we are trying to do is introduce a small local office solution that has the technology infrastructure of a Kaiser, Mayo Clinic, or University of San Francisco,” he said.

By reducing overhead and administration, the company has also been able to offer medical care at a cheaper rate.

The group accepts almost all insurance plans, including PPOs and HMOs, but asks that customers pay $149 a year to support those who don’t have insurance, and enable the company to invest in new technology. For those without insurance, it costs about $150 a visit, which is still cheaper than most alternatives.

One Medical currently boasts 23 offices around the country with 13 in the SF Bay Area, six in New York, two in Washington, D.C. and one each in Chicago and Boston, and more planned to open this year.

---

Big Data and Predictive/Real-time Analytics startups: Are you looking to jumpstart development & accelerate market traction? Sign up for the SAP Startup Focus program to receive technology, support, resources and community to help you develop new applications on SAP HANA, a cutting edge database platform. Get started here, and enter promo code “VB2013″ on the form.

---

The Senate has backed a repeal of a 2.3 percent tax on medical device makers that was enacted as part of Obamacare.

Silicon Valley’s health-technology entrepreneurs view this move as a step in the right direction, whether or not the bill passes.

“It could move forward and, more importantly represents how much the tax is disfavored,” said Practice Fusion‘s senior policy advisor Lauren Fifield. Practice Fusion is a San Francisco-based startup that has been keeping a watchful eye on hearings in Congress this week.

As VentureBeat reported, the Food and Drug Administration is under pressure to determine which “grey area” mobile medical apps should be regulated — and potentially taxed as medical devices.

“This may bode well for med mobile app developers — if the Senate is voting to repeal the tax for devices, there’s no way they’d support a tax on entrepreneurs,” said Fifield.

Happtique’s Ben Chodor was brought in to testify in Congress this week, and represent the voice of health entrepreneurs.

Chodor is outspokenly critical about the tax on medical devices, especially considering that it could prompt bio-tech and life science investors to look at international markets where tax rates are lower. “I think and believe they listened,” he said.

According to Politico, the language was included in an non-binding amendment to the budget resolution, meaning the tax will remain in place regardless of whether the resolution passes. But it does demonstrate growing bi-partisan opposition to the tax in the nation’s capital.

“The importance of this vote cannot be overstated,” said Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, who introduced the amendment. “For the first time, Democrats and Republicans have come together in recognizing how bad this tax is. We cannot stop here. We must continue the fight to get rid of this tax.”

As Newsmax points out, most of the Democrats who backed this Hatch amendment are from states that are home to numerous medical device-makers.

Congress is conducting a three-day series of hearings to decide how to regulate the explosion of health apps on smartphone and tablet devices.

Lawmakers from the House Energy and Commerce committee have been holed up to discuss how to balance patient’s privacy concerns and inspire innovation in the developer community.

“Developers are mystified by the rules in this highly regulated industry,” said Ben Chodor [below], the chief executive of mobile health app store Happtique, who called me after testifying alongside a handful of medical experts in Congress today.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been mulling over this problem for years. It remains unclear which medical and consumer health apps come under its jurisdiction.

“Since the 2011 guidance [that it would be seeking public input], the FDA has held a public workshop on mobile medical apps and has received many public comments, but has not yet issued final guidance,” states a letter the committee sent to the FDA earlier this month.

Gaining FDA approval can take years and thousands of dollars, but it’s worth it for companies like AliveCor, a technology that turns your smartphone into a sophisticated heart monitor.

But what about the vast majority of medical apps that are not for clinical use and are designed for scheduling doctors’ visits or devising a healthy eating plan?

Chodor advised the FDA to clarify that apps sold in a consumer environment, like an App Store, will not come under regulation. The vast majority of health apps fall into this category (only about 15 or 20 percent of all apps are for clinical use.) He explained that FDA approval should only be necessary if the app is intended for physician use to make decisions about your health. “The FDA is in the best position to regulate that subset of apps,” he said.

The total market for health-related app services will reach $26 billion by 2017, according to a study from the consulting firm Research2Guidance.

The burgeoning med-tech community fears that the FDA will step up its enforcement, and shackle consumers health products. This is stifling innovation with developers “waiting on the sidelines” for an official decision, according to Chodor.

“FDA needs come up with their guidelines already — sooner rather than later,” he said.

According to the Washington Post, lawmakers are also questioning whether the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would encourage the FDA to define smartphones and tablets with health-related apps as “medical devices.” This has repercussions for the tax that will be levied on the next generation of mobile health products. Medical devices are levied far higher taxes than consumer products and services.

Chodor is concerned that investors are already turning to international markets, where tax rates on medical-related products are lower.

The blurry line between a consumer-focused health app and a medical device is a bureaucratic nightmare. To make matters worse, many of these new health-related apps are used in clinical settings and by consumers. “To put it bluntly, that is the area that no one gets,” said Chodor.

Top image via Tyler Olson// Shutterstock