New York City-based Northwell Health and startup studio Aegis Ventures are forming a joint venture to develop, launch and scale artificial intelligence-driven healthcare companies.
The joint venture will bring resources together — including the clinical expertise of Northwell and the commercialization capabilities of Aegis — to develop AI companies that address issues in quality, health equity and other crises in healthcare. The entity will bring together clinicians, researchers, patients and payers to identify the most pressing problems that need to be addressed.
“We’re designing these companies in close coordination with the ultimate beneficiaries of the designs,” said Tom Manning, chairman of the Northwell-Aegis joint venture, in a phone interview. “We really think that that’s going to allow us to develop much more implementable designs and innovations.”
Aegis Ventures intends to invest at least $100 million of seed-stage funds through the venture.
The joint venture’s first project is focused on predictive modeling and early intervention for preeclampsia. Its focus will then expand to other chronic disease states, such as diabetes and cardiac conditions.
“We look forward to constantly trying to improve upon the way we look at care, the efficiencies in care, the types of disparities that may exist in care delivery and hopefully glean insights into better patterns of care and/or better ways of providing it more efficiently through the use of data,” said Richard Mulry, COO of Northwell’s business arm TrueNorth, in a phone interview.
Northwell cares for more than 2 million people annually across 23 hospitals and hundreds of other facilities, providing it with a massive trove of data. With Aegis, the health system is getting access to industry resources to establish AI companies that can have a material impact on patient health.
“[Aegis is] tapping into a network within different communities, data science for example, and people working in other industries — bringing their knowledge to bear, and applying it toward solving healthcare problems is very powerful,” Mulry said. “It’s not that we couldn’t get there — but together we can get there faster.”
The joint venture is expected to generate anywhere from five to 15 companies over the next several years.
The North American healthcare AI market is expected to grow rapidly, experiencing a 44.2% compound annual growth rate from 2021 to 2027. Northwell and Aegis believe that they can successfully tap into that market by developing companies and solutions guided by healthcare stakeholders and patient data.
“Designing from the inside is really an outstanding way to make the best use of resources available and [to] do so in as short a period of time as possible,” Northwell-Aegis joint venture’s Manning said.
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