Driving change across the healthcare industry by creating new therapeutics and digital health solutions that positively impact communities locally and nationally is the goal for Eshelman Innovation.
The innovation engine, based out of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, uses state and federal funding to research and develop new solutions tied to cancer diagnostics, community mental health challenges, food insecurity, and health equity, among other focus areas, through its therapeutics accelerator.
But the organization also has a dedicated venture studio to launch new HealthTech startups at scale, in partnership with High Alpha Innovation, with an initial focus on combating the opioid epidemic.
Specifically, Eshelman is exploring business concepts with our team and launching companies like Goldie Health.
The goal is to twofold:
- Create ways to better treat those who experience acute opioid use disorder.
- Give healthcare workers the resources to properly care for at-risk individuals.
We sat down with Eshelman Innovation Venture Studio Managing Director Bob Dieterle to discuss what drew him to the UNC-based innovation hub, the value of the venture studio model for universities (and other scaled organizations), and the distinct healthcare issues Eshelman aims to solve through startup creation.
HAI: Tell us how you came to join Eshelman Innovation. What about the organization’s mission and vision appealed to you?
Bob: I come from industry, not academia. I'm a computer engineer and an MBA. In the early part of my career, I was at IBM, developing notebook computers. I left there about 14-15 years ago, then started and grew my own digital health startup. And I've been in the startup space ever since.
I came to Eshelman about four years ago. I love the organization’s mission, especially at this stage of my career. Our goal is to take our research and problems in healthcare and make a big impact and improve health in communities across the country, starting with those in North Carolina.
The shared Eshelman and UNC vision is very refreshing to me. I think digital technologies can make significant improvements in healthcare.
When we look at commercializing university research, there's a playbook that doesn't really work for digital. Patenting intellectual property and then offering it as a license to corporations to purchase just doesn’t work for us.
The best way, in my mind, to commercialize digital health solutions is through venture-backable startup creation.
Startups that can have a complete focus on solving a specific problem, and the fuel they get with the venture dollars validates it and gives it that bump to get that traction it needs to grow and scale.
HAI: How does the venture studio model help universities like UNC unlock innovation and make it easier to launch startups at scale?
Bob: We don't have a dedicated ecosystem of startup creation in North Carolina, so we saw the venture studio model as something that looked very interesting and, so far, it’s working.
I think the venture studio is a really great tool for states and universities like ours that really don't have an emerging kind of entrepreneurial environment, because you’re able to create purpose-built startups that solve highly specific problems and tackle big themes.
You take the expertise at Eshelman and UNC altogether and the problems that we have in health at large, then you partner that with a venture builder like High Alpha Innovation that knows venture building and how to launch startups through this model, and it can be a game-changer. It is for us.
HAI: Regarding North Carolina, specifically, what makes the state a great place to test new HealthTech solutions created with HAI?
Healthcare is our mission. We’re funded to focus exclusively on that. And we're a translational institute, so everything we do is around impact. The therapeutics accelerator and venture studio operate in two arenas.
On the digital health side, we've been leaning into a lot of UNC’s strengths as the flagship public university in our state, and really the country.
We're the ones that are out in the communities speaking with healthcare industry members and the public to discover what challenges exist that we can potentially solve for with startups.
When you look at community health, for example, and the challenge of access to healthcare, we’re uniquely configured as a state. We have one-third rural population, one-third urban population, and one-third suburban population. And they're kind of intermixed.
When you look at health inequities in all three types of communities, we unfortunately have several health-related problems, including and especially opioid use disorder. Appalachia was the epicenter of the crisis, and it's a lot more acute there than other parts of the country.
We're leaning into that from an innovation perspective, saying, ‘Can we flip the script of devastating impact?’ But then we follow through and launch real digital health solutions that are sustainable and can scale much quicker than grant-funded nonprofits, who are doing great work, but living grant to grant and can't have that same level of impact.
That's what we're hoping for at Eshelman. If you launch a Goldie Health that's specifically focused on emergency management and a coordinated, post-overdose response, you could scale that.
You're flipping the script now from Asheville being the epicenter of a crisis to now being an epicenter of innovative solutions to solve these problems.
So that's our hypothesis and vision, and that's why you see us operating around the state. We can knock on any door in any part of the state, and they take our call, which is great. There's a potential competitive advantage to that.
Then you look at the venture studio. We can de-risk startups tied to these issues using the High Alpha Innovation startup model. We can launch a startup in western North Carolina, and all of that expertise is right there.
Our team has access to that community they're helping, and the community is also helping us form these companies.
HAI: What impact are you seeing with Goldie Health, in terms of better facilitating care and treatment for those in acute opioid crisis?
Bob: We were fortunate enough to get follow-on grant dollars to grow Goldie Heath, as the state was really excited with the concept. We used some opioid-settlement funds coming to us to help solve the problem happening here.
With CEO Chris Martin coming onboard to run the company and actively pilot the platform with various North Carolina counties, and given his background, it’s a dream come true.
With startups created with High Alpha Innovation, founders like Chris get a train already in motion.
Chris was able to come in with customers already secured and software already being developed. It's like a relay race with handing off the baton. If you do it right and efficiently, you can go really fast.
HAI: What has it been like to partner with HAI to build startups? How has the collaboration unlocked new opportunities for UNC?
Bob: You’ve been great partners, and we’re really happy with our work together. Eshelman is kind of like a group of entrepreneurs, building this venture studio out in our state, and High Alpha Innovation didn’t force its model on us.
You came to the table, and said, ‘This is what the world looks like with you guys.’ But you also worked with us and evolved the model to fit our needs, and I think it's helped us envision how we can build companies together.
