The 20 Hottest Digital Health Startups From Flyover Country, 2021
January 13, 2021, Imanis Life Sciences, Rochester MN
The publication of last year’s list of the hottest companies in digital health in between the coasts—in so-called Flyover Country—now seems like it happened ten years ago. The coronavirus pandemic, which helped stretch 2020 into an interminable black hole, made it clear that healthcare innovation is a key to our survival as a species
And so as we now embark on the latest edition of our annual list of the hottest healthcare companies in Flyover Country, ahead of the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference (this year, not to anyone’s surprise, an entirely virtual event), we’re highlighting the ones our group of impaneled experts felt were doing exceptional work and creating extraordinary value in a healthcare milieu without modern precedent.
As in past years, we have assembled our kitchen cabinet of savvy health-tech venture capitalists, healthcare PE investors, coastal healthcare executives, and industry analysts to survey them about which companies they think are really killing it in the Midwest, Rockies and other places where every day is a good day for flannel or denim.
As in previous years, our list is not a ranking per se. All of the hundreds of companies considered for this year’s list are doing important work, helping to save lives, delivering better care, or creating a more efficient healthcare ecosystem. These are just the ones earning the most notice.
16. Imanis Life Sciences (Rochester, MN); Capital Raised: Undisclosed
Birthed from within the Mayo Clinic’s venture capital ecosystem, Imanis Life Sciences is a trailblazer in the field of non-invasive imaging research in regenerative medicine, gene therapy, oncology, and oncolytic virotherapy. Led by virology experts Stephen Russell MD, PhD and Kah Whye Peng PhD, Imanis Life Sciences advanced two new market ready, virus-based tools used in the fight against Covid-19. Imanis scientists, working along with colleagues from sister company Vyriad (also helmed by Russell and Peng), developed the Immuno-Cov V2.0 test, which measures a patient’s blood for the neutralizing antibodies that block SARS-Cov-2 infection, and a new Covid-19 vaccine candidate that has shown potential after tests in primates.
Published January 13, 2021: https://observer.com/2021/01/2021-20-hottest-digital-health-startups-flyover-country/