News and Insights
Highlights from the Inaugural MA Digital Health Investment Summit
May 16, 2023
Boston has grown into one of the epicenters for innovation in healthcare. The city is home to one of the nation’s great health centers with numerous academic medical centers, world-class medical talent, and innovation-centered private equity. Based on this impressive resume, it’s also no wonder that the digital health ecosystem in the region is thriving.
As Boston has become such a powerhouse in digital health, we thought it would be great to bring together some of the people involved in this ever-growing ecosystem.
We recently hosted the first MA Digital Health Investment Summit in collaboration with Galen Growth to showcase the state’s rapidly expanding sphere of digital health ventures and innovators tackling healthcare challenges head-on to optimize the well-being of all individuals. This event was organized in conjunction with a release of the first ever report on the state of the digital health ecosystem in New England.
Those who attended the summit took part in a fascinating panel discussing the trends impacting New England Regional digital health investment in 2023 which was moderated by the seasoned life sciences reporter Rowan Walrath from the Boston Business Journal. The panelists included Lindsay Jubelt, Chief Population Health Officer at Mass General Brigham, Justine Levin-Allerhand, Senior Partner at Flagship Pioneering, Prem Sharma, HealthTech Entrepreneur and Laura Taraboanta, Associate Director Clinical Innovation at Click Therapeutics.
The discussion touched upon defining digital health, current opportunities for investment in digital health and how Massachusetts is uniquely poised to revolutionize health management systems and improve health outcomes. As noted by Henry Pittman, Founder, Chief Strategy Officer of GSC 360, who attended the event, “The Boston healthcare ecosystem is strategically positioned to lead a much needed healthcare transformation being underpinned by some of the top healthcare institutions, brilliant thought leaders and explosive public-private investment potentially being led by digital health innovation. The panel did an excellent job of examining the role that digital health is playing in that transformation, particularly in the Boston market.”
Attendees also received the “Digital Health in Massachusetts 2022 Year-End Report”—the first analysis examining digital health investment shifts throughout the New England region. Drawing input from more than 300 million data points and some 13,000 ventures, the analysis provides a market first by comparing the Mass-innovation hub’s progress and problems to how centers of innovation around the United States are faring. Some key findings include:
- 9% of (global) digital health ventures are now launched from Massachusetts, making the state the 3rd largest sector ecosystem in the U.S., following California and New York – a sudden shift in leadership
- Massachusetts ventures are well-financed, with 83% raising capital in either 2021 or 2022 – giving them the possibility to operate to the next stage in the current environment
- Massachusetts ventures tackle a health system key pain point – interoperability. 22% of ventures focus on “Health Management Solutions,” the largest of the investment clusters, followed by research solutions, medical diagnostics, patient solutions, then telemedicine
- Oncology moves into the top position in Massachusetts as the most invested therapeutic category in 2022, shifting mental health to second place.
FINN is proud to collaborate with Galen Growth to take a deeper dive into the digital health landscape which we believe will help inform the choices providers, payers, product innovators and patients must make in the coming years. We are even more excited at the prospect of continuing to partner for future events in a city home to some of the most prestigious hospitals and medical schools, physicians and medical scientists in the world.
We look forward to bringing you more sector insights in the future, and I hope to see you soon at our next Boston Conversations in Healthcare event June 20th.
POSTED BY: Ritesh Patel
