Keep up with news from Wisconsin’s innovation community with these recent headlines:
—Doyenne Group, an organization that supports Wisconsin-based companies led by women and people of color, enrolled seven startups in its new business accelerator, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. The inaugural program reportedly kicked off in January and will run for 12 months. According to Doyenne’s website, every three months the organization will enroll a new class of startups in its accelerator—meaning that by 2019, four classes will be in session at any given time.
Doyenne provides each startup that participates in its accelerator with $5,000 in grant funding, as well as individualized coaching throughout the program, according to the State Journal. Companies seeking additional money from Doyenne can apply for up to $50,000 in debt or equity funding from Doyenne’s $1.2 million Evergreen Fund, the organization says. One of the startups in Doyenne’s first accelerator class is Madison-based Stimmi, which is developing software allowing parents and caregivers to document and share information on non-verbal autistic people.
—Simon Rasalingham, a British healthcare entrepreneur, acquired the Madison-based startup Behold.AI for an undisclosed sum. Behold.AI develops digital tools designed to spot abnormalities in medical images and help radiologists do their jobs more efficiently. Rasalingham said the company is seeking to get healthcare providers in the U.K. and U.S. to start using Behold.AI’s software.
—Three leaders at the University of California, San Francisco’s Center for Digital Health Innovation co-authored a post on the blog Health Stack in which they make the case against rebranding the term “electronic health record” to “comprehensive health record.” Judy Faulkner, founder and CEO of Verona-based Epic Systems, explained the concept of a “comprehensive” patient record during a presentation in September. While the blog post by the IT leaders at UCSF does not mention Epic or Faulkner by name, “the response is clearly pointed in the direction” of Epic, according to the trade publication HealthITAnaltyics. The authors of the Health Stack post wrote that “connected health record” better captures the idea that hospitals and clinics should be able to freely exchange such records. “No single vendor [health records] system is comprehensive,” they wrote.
—Madison-based Cellectar Biosciences (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CLRB]]) said the FDA granted orphan drug status to a drug candidate the company is developing for treating a rare pediatric cancer known as neuroblastoma. The compound, CLR 131, also has the potential to treat malignant tumors and certain forms of blood cancer, including multiple myeloma, Cellectar said.
The American Cancer Society estimates there are about 700 new cases of neuroblastoma each year in the U.S., and it’s the most common cancer in infants by a significant margin.
Cellectar said it plans to initiate an early stage clinical trial of CLR 131 in pediatric patients by the end of June. The company said the study will enroll up to 30 children and adolescents with cancers, including neuroblastoma, sarcomas, lymphomas, and malignant brain tumors.
—Inner-City Computer Stars Foundation, a Chicago-based organization that teaches computing and technology skills to young adults, plans to bring its training programs to Milwaukee. The Dohmen Company, a conglomerate of healthcare businesses based in the city, said it committed to provide the foundation with $1.6 million to fuel its expansion into Milwaukee and other U.S. markets.
—Madson-based Tailored Care is one of 10 startups selected to participate in a new program focused on developing products and services to address the needs of the country’s aging population. The program, called “Health: US 2018,” is organized by Kaiser Permanente and Village Capital, a Washington D.C. venture capital firm.
Tailored Care’s software is designed to help “care professionals”—a category that
