Naomi Fried, Ph.D. founder and CEO of PharmStars has been working with a team of professionals to educate and guide the startups and budding entrepreneurs to build innovative as well as sophisticated solutions in the health-tech domain, especially in the pharmaceutical sector. As a visionary leader, she aims to work with startups and pharma companies for developing innovative solutions.
Laura Gunn, Ph.D., PharmStars gains vast experience in both the pharmaceutical and diagnostic industries. She is known to discover user-friendly solutions even while working on the most complex problems. As head of the team, she always guides the team through her coaching and leadership qualities. She brings a unique combination of scientific and business acumen. This combination distinguishes her in dealing with the most complex business and collaborative efforts.
Neel Achary, Head, Business News This Week & Digital Media 9, interacts with Naomi Fried, CEO & Founder, and Laura Gunn, Ph.D., PharmStars about their journey in the industry and their future plans.
Q. 1) Your inspiration to start, the pharma-focused accelerator for digital health startup, PharmStars?
Ans. Our goal is to facilitate and accelerate successful collaborations between digital health startups and pharmaceutical companies, resulting in higher success for both sides and accelerating adoption of digital health to improve patient’s outcomes.
Q. 2) Please share some facts and particulars with our readers about the accelerator and its activities?
Ans: We work to reduce the gap between startups and pharmaceutical companies through the accelerator program, which is of 10-week duration. PharmStars educates, mentors, and provides support to startups who go on to present to the pharmaceutical companies that are our members.
We address many of the most complicated issues startups face when trying to partner with pharma, including understanding pharma’s structure, function, and business models.
We focus on helping digital health startups through the education program PharmaUTM:
- PharmaU offers a Comprehensive Education Program for 10 Weeks to the top 10 startups in digital health around our cohort theme.
- PharmaU includes mentorship of the startups to achieve their goals after graduating from the accelerator program.
- PharmaU assists in preparing business models, understating pharma market opportunities, preparing pitch decks and presentations. More importantly, we work as a bridge for startups to reach pharmaceutical companies.
Currently, we have 6 (Six) pharmaceutical companies as our ‘members.’ They are Alexion, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, Sumitovant Biopharma, and Takeda. We are working on various avenues to increase the partners’ number to 10 (Ten) in 2022.
Q. 3) In the last cohort: innovations in clinical trials in 2021, you selected 12 startups instead of 10, the reason for considering the other two startups in the cohort?
Ans: We looked for a spectrum of solutions that are more innovative and aim to address the challenges of pharmaceutical companies in the clinical trial processes. We received so many extraordinary applications from around the world that we decided to increase our cohort from 10 to 12.
Q. 4) The array of solutions you look for in startups to qualify cohort?
Ans. We look for a spectrum of solutions. Any solutions that are innovative and aim to address the challenges of pharmaceutical companies and address our cohort theme are welcome to apply. It can be any solution regardless of the use of the technology, the major focus is, how the innovation or the product addresses the theme. Our Spring cohort theme is “Digital Innovations In Neurological Disease”.
Solutions like: Digital diagnostics, Digital therapeutics, caregiver solutions, Remote patient monitoring, Patient-reported outcomes will get the attention of the current cohort (spring 2022 Cohort), which is going to start from March 2022 and is based on the theme of Digital Innovations in Neurological Disease.
Q. 5) What message you would like to give to budding entrepreneurs in the digital health space?
Naomi Fried:
“Startups and entrepreneurs need to understand the pharmaceutical industry before commencing any relationship with them. Domain knowledge is the key to success. They need to focus on the needs and challenges of the pharmaceutical companies, as well as need to focus on building innovative solutions to improve patient outcomes. Startups need to be well prepared.”
Laura Gunn:
“The pharma industry is the most complex industry. It is important to educate startups on the key trends and challenges of the pharmaceutical industry. Mutual understanding is the key to development and growth. We strive hard to provide all the necessary information to help startups in understanding the most complex things in the industry.”
Q. 6) Last question: Any startup from the African region graduated from the previous cohort?
Ans: We are working with startups across the globe. Previously many startups from the countries like India, New Zealand, Netherlands, Germany, etc applied. We would love to have startups from Africa graduate from our next cohort. So far, none of the startups from Africa have applied for this cohort.
Thank you, Naomi Fried and Laura Gunn, for answering our questions. We wish your cohort will be successful and we would see the many more innovative solutions in digital healthcare.
Best Wishes on behalf of Business News This week for all your future endeavors!
About PharmStars:
PharmStars is the only member-based, pharma-focused accelerator for digital health startups. Through our extensive expertise across pharma, startups, digital health, and innovation, we understand the challenges that pharma and startups face when seeking to collaborate. Our PharmaU program supports digital health startups and our pharma members in “bridging the gap,” leading to greater success and faster adoption of “beyond the molecule” solutions for patients.
