Even though the relations between the two powers have reached historic lows, US-Russian cooperation in scientific and technological fields is still partly alive.
Thus the US-Russia Innovation Corridor (USRIC) — a cooperation framework created in 2013 by American Councils as part of the EURECA program — announced today that five medical technology startups from Russia traveled to Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. on November 2-11 as part of a medical technology accelerator program. These early-stage startups met with U.S. investors, companies, universities, and industry players operating in the Mid-Atlantic healthcare ecosystem.
American Councils administers the program with ongoing support from the US-Russia Foundation. American Councils selected startups to join the medtech accelerator in November 2015. “It is an example of our activities to connect individual Russian startups with U.S. universities, companies, and investors,” Adrian Erlinger, Program Manager at American Councils, told East-West Digital News.
The Russian startups in the November delegation included:
- Advanced Dental Cloud, a SaaS CAD/CAM platform that connects dentists to milling and scanning centers.
- Exoatlet, a powered exoskeleton for rehabilitation of paraplegic patients.
- iBinom, a cloud-based service to help geneticists and clinical researchers analyze genome information for inherited disease diagnostics.
- MD4ME, an IT service for better interpreting patients’ lab test results.
- MyGenetics, a direct-to-consumer DNA-testing service for discovering patient’s nutritional needs.
During the first half of the two-week working visit, Philadelphia’s University City Science Center Digital Healthcare Accelerator hosted an investor pitch session. The startups introduced their products to medical faculty from Temple University and Drexel University, and discussed sponsored research opportunities and industry-university collaboration. The startups met local healthcare leaders including the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and DreamIt Ventures, a venture capital and seed accelerator firm focusing on medical technologies.
The delegation then traveled to Washington, DC where they met biotechnology experts at George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, MedStar Institute for Innovation, and Kaiser Permanente Center for Total Health. Throughout the visit, U.S. experts shared perspectives on intellectual property protection, market entry strategies, and key trends in medical technology. The visit culminated in a visit to the mHealth Summit, the Russian American Scientists Association annual conference, and a roundtable with investors and corporate representatives hosted at American Councils’ headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Back in 2013, University of Maryland and the University of Nizhny Novgorod were the founding university partners of the initiative. This particular partnership was put on hold due to the events of this summer, following the dismissal of Kendrick White from its senior position at the University of Nizhny Novgorod. However, “USRIC continues to develop new university partnerships and startup exchanges through EURECA,” said Erlinger.
