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So you have a ground-breaking idea for a healthcare startup or have the bones of a product that you want to fast-track. Where do you go next?
Unless you can coax big bucks out of investors and venture capital, an accelerator or incubator program may be your best bet.
To be clear, an incubator tends to be best used as a tool to support the first stages of development whereas an accelerator guides you to a fully-grown beast ready to take on the world (ideally).
Here are some Australian-based, health / healthcare-focussed setups that may be able to help you:
Human Innovation Lab (Sydney, NSW)
From Precision Medicine to Clinical Intelligence, the Sydney-based Human Innovation Lab incubator appears to be welcoming of all in “Digital Health” which they define as "...any technology that digitises human, medical, biological, or health information”.
Innovation Centre (Sunshine Coast, QLD)
Based on the aptly-name Sunshine Coast, the Innovation Centre looks at “MedTech, Health or Wellbeing” startups to take under their wing and accelerate. Operated by the University of the Sunshine Coast there are huge benefits for those needing research and technical expertise.
HCF Catalyst (Sydney, NSW)
One of the most prominent accelerators on the scene, the HCF Catalyst program is powered by Slingshotters, a well-known force in this space. That being said, the link to HCF has always bee an interesting for me personally, because as a health insurance customer of said company they still do not provide online bookings and still send me snail-mail letters! Personal gripe aside, some solid names in healthtech have passed through the program, and they cater for startups and “scaleups”.
The Actuator (Melbourne, VIC & Sydney, NSW)
By far the most impressively-named program (it sounds like it could be the Terminator’s arch nemesis), The Actuator claims to be “Australia’s National Medtech Accelerator”. Moving more into the technical medical device world, the team behind it are hard to beat, with huge amounts of experience, skills and resources.
ANDHealth
"Australia’s National Digital Health Initiative” is the only organisation in Australia that is specifically dedicated to advancing the commercialisation of clinically validated digital health technologies. ANDHealth's non-equity taking, industry-led programs work with digital health innovations across key areas of clinical and commercial validation, providing hands on support, access to clinical and industry experts, and to global networks. Its 2017 cohort companies received $1.84 million in value from the accelerator and have since created 32 new jobs and raised over $14 million.
And a bonus one...
Victorian Health Network Accelerator (VHNx)
Borne out of the Melbourne Health Accelerator (MHx), VHNx are focused on early stage startups and are the only "in-hospital" programs with direct access to hospital operations and staff. The programs also target and support in-house innovation to surface from within hospitals so they can be validated and go out to the fantastic other incubators and accelerators mentioned above.
www.vhnx.com.au
Aware of any we missed above? Get in touch by email at terry@doctology.com.au today.
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