“We are in a global digital healthcare revolution with significant investment across various categories. These include wearables, analytics and data, digital medical devices, population health management, personal health tools and tracking as well as the evolution of electronic health records,” said Dr Ryan Noach, Discovery Health’s deputy chief executive officer.
“The pace of digital health funding in the first half of 2016 echoed the record-breaking years of 2014 and 2015, with funding just passing the $2 bn mark. This is an exciting time for start-ups looking to disrupt the game,” said Noach.
So, the medical aid launched Discovery Entrepreneurs Medical Technology Programme, last year. After rigorous selection and interview processes, South Africa's most innovative tech-enabled health and wellness enterprises and entrepreneurs, embarked on a week long, fully funded educational business visit to the Silicon Valley, USA where the latest in global technology-driven innovation was explored.
In addition to this once in a lifetime business tour, these start-ups also received business mentorship going forward, access to company development and procurement support, as well as supply chain and investment opportunities.
One of the beneficiaries was self-screening medical testing provider and South African company, UDoTest™.
Whilst in San Francisco, Allison Martin, CEO of UDoTest, piqued the interest of Launchpad Digital Health, an incubator with innovative programmess for start-ups wanting to pressure test their businesses in the US, and was accepted into their healthcare incubator for a six-month period, which commenced from January 2017.
“This whole journey has been unbelievable,” said Martin, from her new office in San Francisco. “When I applied for the Discovery Entrepreneurs Medical Technology Programme last year, I knew that I was up against stiff competition from other entrepreneurs in the SA medical and healthcare space, who also have huge passion, business acumen and vision.”
UDoTest™, founded by Martin, offers breakthrough and accurate self-screening pathology tests, currently in the disease areas of HPV, STD, colon and gluten Intolerance detection.
“It is enormously encouraging to know that Discovery Health recognises the value of technology in driving innovation in healthcare,” said Martin.
“The goal of the San Francisco trip was not only to open our minds, to change our perceptions and get us to realise our full potential, it was to learn as much as possible in the leading healthcare start-up community of the world, and to make us realise that we too can compete on a global scale.”
