UC Berkeley School of Public Health welcomes fifth Health Innovation Accelerator cohort

This spring, UC Berkeley School of Public Health welcomed the fifth Health Innovation Accelerator cohort: eight health-related technology startups who were selected to participate in the program as part of an ongoing partnership with the National Development Council in Taiwan.

The Health Innovation Accelerator connects participating startup teams with health systems leaders, executives at life sciences companies, experts in regulatory and reimbursement strategies, successful entrepreneurs, life science investors, and other resources to promote the teams’ long-term success.

The teams receive training from coaches with extensive experience in the life sciences sector and can take advantage of events and programs that will help them hone their product and business plans through UC Berkeley’s innovation and entrepreneurship resources.

“Innovation is baked into Berkeley’s DNA as evident in our recognition as the top producer nationally for generating founders of venture-backed companies, the quality and quantity of research pioneered by our faculty, and so many other metrics,” said Jared Mazzanti, the school’s director of strategic initiatives. “UC Berkeley School of Public Health’s health innovation accelerator—and the Asia-based Healthcare Conference we co-host with J.P. Morgan each year—serves as a platform for showcasing our many strengths in Asia but also for connecting with and learning from the region’s tenacious entrepreneurs.”

This year’s startup teams are working on projects ranging from AI drug discovery to personalized fitness to new ways to test for conditions like endometriosis to using new technology to advance screening for health risks.

Min-Wen Chung and Charles Ho—COO and sales and marketing director, respectively, of LumiSTAR Biotechnology—are part of the current cohort of innovators. Their company is developing a bioimaging-based drug screening platform to develop new drugs.

“We were drawn to the program because of the opportunity to receive mentorship and training from top experts in the U.S. biomedical field,” they said in an email. “It also offered participating startups the privilege to tap into UC Berkeley School of Public Health’s extensive resources and network to explore potential market opportunities in the U.S.”

Other startups in the current cohort include Coherence Biotech, Trendonut (Trainge), Advmeds, V-CHECK, Precise Big Data, DeepRad.AI, and Enlightmen Biotech.

Previous health innovation accelerator teams have gone on to win competitions including SelectUSA, run by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and Meet the Drapers—an entrepreneur-focused television show—and have built partnerships with UC Berkeley Public Health faculty to address public health challenges like tuberculosis detection.