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PharmStars Ventures

Building and funding the bridge between startups and pharma

What is PharmStars Ventures?

Promise of digital health

Digital health has the potential to transform the pharmaceutical industry and the patient experience. Digital health and pharma firms are eager to engage with one another. Yet both have found it challenging to create successful partnerships.

PharmStars Ventures is a unique venture fund that wraps around the PharmStars accelerator.
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Over the last 4 years, the PharmStars accelerator has become the premier pharma-digital health accelerator, leveraging its global reach and industry leading position to source, select, and accelerate 20+ startups annually.
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PharmStars Ventures will invest in the PharmStars accelerator graduates.

"Our mission is to facilitate and accelerate successful partnerships between digital health startups and pharma, leading to greater success for each and faster adoption of digital health to improve patient outcomes."
‍- Naomi Fried PhD, Founder & CEO, PharmStars

PharmStars' Advantage

Established Reputation
  • Strong recognized brand within the startup ecosystem
  • Highly selective program with many startups referred by investors and other accelerators
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Pharma Connections
  • Direct relationships with numerous leading, global pharma firms
  • Deep understanding of pharmas' unmet needs
Unique Model
  • Unique pharma/digital health focus
  • Established, validated mechanism for building startup value
  • Opportunity to develop and polish startup CEOs and teams
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Investment Edge
  • High quality, quantity, and diverse deal flow
  • Exposure to global digital health startups
  • Exceptional due diligence: initial assessment followed by an intensive 10-week program
  • Ability to engage startups between funding rounds
  • Long-term, post-accelerator development through our “Graduate School” program
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Experienced Team
  • PharmStars team: experienced, collaborative
  • Mentor Advisors: small, trained, experienced group of former pharma executives who work directly with startups (2+ hours/week)

Selecting and Growing Startups

The PharmStars accelerator has fine-tuned a standardized and methodical process of sourcing, developing, and accelerating the best global digital health startups.

Startup Identification

Startup Applications

Twice a year, hundreds of digital health startups from across the globe and healthcare ecosystem apply (37 countries and counting) to be a part of the PharmStars accelerator.

Startup Selection

PharmStars startups are selected through a competitive, standardized selection process. Incorporating detailed input from our pharma members, applications are reviewed by PharmStars’ staff and Mentor Advisors. Startups are assessed on numerous criteria including innovativeness, product maturity, and the potential for a strong pharma product-market fit.

Startup Development

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PharmaU Curriculum

During the 10 weeks of engaging, virtual classes, startups learn about pharma's internal structure and functions, business models, regulatory environment, and industry drivers.

Unique Mentoring Program

PharmStars' staff and Mentor Advisors (former pharma executives) provide each startup with in-depth, individualized guidance to enhance their business model, presentation, and preparation to engage pharma clients.

Pharma Relations

Fireside Chats and Member Panels with PharmStars’ pharma members provide startups with unprecedented access to pharma innovation leaders. Startups are able to ask questions to understand pharma as a potential customer, and develop relationships in a friendly atmosphere.

Commercial Acceleration

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Exclusive Showcase/Symposium

PharmStars culminates with a private three-day Event where startups present to an audience of PharmStars' pharma members, investors, and media, followed by two days of private, one-on-one business meetings. Pharma stakeholders and domain experts often attend, speeding the partnership process.

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Graduate School

Startups receive continued support and engagement after the accelerator through our Graduate School program. Grad School offers an on-going series of workshops, discussion panels, and networking opportunities that helps alumni stay up-to-date on the latest trends in the pharma industry and grow their businesses. PharmStars alumni are a strong community of like-mined digital health startups that learn and share their experience engaging pharma..

PharmStars Ventures Portfolio Companies

AESOP Technology

Dashboard for Real-Time EHR Data Insights.

Taipei, Taiwan

Comend

Federated Marketplace of Rare Disease Patient Advocacy Groups and Their Biosamples, Studies, and IP

Toronto, Canada

Compose

AI Orchestration Platform for Rapid Market-Facing Content Production

Ottawa, Canada

Exosystems Inc.

AI Digital Biomarker Platform for Quantitative, Objective Motor Function Assessment

Seongnam-si, Korea

GKS

Continuously Updated Information Engine to Access Industry-Wide Compliance and Regulatory Data

New York, NY

Intercellular

AI-enabled miRNA Platform for Cancer Monitoring

San Francisco, CA

LivAi

AI Platform Transforming Routine Imaging into 3D, Quantitative Tumor Biomarkers

San Francisco, CA

Meep

Clinical-Grade At-Home Biomarker Minilab for Measuring Daily Disease Activity, Drug Levels and Organ Function

Ghent, Belgium

Octozi

AI-Enabled Data Cleaning and Review Platform

New York, NY

Preview Health

Complete Metabolic-Profiling AI Platform for Precision Medicine

Sydney, Australia

PulManage, Inc.

Scalable Platform for Real-time, High-quality, Remote Spirometry

Chapin, SC

Vako

Platform to Unify Patient Advocacy Groups and Support Their Patients

New York, NY

General Partners

Promise of digital health

Digital health has the potential to transform the pharmaceutical industry and the patient experience. Digital health and pharma firms are eager to engage with one another. Yet both have found it challenging to create successful partnerships.

Experienced innovators, operators, and investors

Naomi Fried Ph.D. and Shrawan Patel M.D. are the General Partners. They bring:

Startup Expertise

  • Started, built, worked in, and worked alongside startups from inception stage through Series E and acquisition

Industry Expertise with Diverse Backgrounds

  • Deep experience in US, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Israel
  • Worked in all healthcare sectors: pharma, provider, and payer
  • Recognized thought-leaders in innovation and digital health
  • Worked on 20+ pharma-startup deals (partnerships, vendor relationships, acquisitions, etc.) on both sides

Demonstrated Track Record

  • Co-founded the PharmStars Accelerator and led 9 PharmStars cohorts: theme; due diligence; startup selection; curriculum and mentoring development; and long-term follow-up
"Our mission is to facilitate and accelerate successful partnerships between digital health startups and pharma, leading to greater success for each and faster adoption of digital health to improve patient outcomes."
‍- Naomi Fried PhD, Founder & CEO, PharmStars
PharmStars Ventures is an exempt reporting adviser (ERA). PharmStars Ventures webpage (referred to herein as the “Webpage”) is limited in nature and is not an offer to buy or sell securities, nor a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell securities. The information contained in this Webpage, is informational only, and is not investment, legal or tax advice. Hyperlinks on this Webpage are provided as a convenience only, and we disclaim any responsibility for the content, availability or accuracy of information on any other website linked hereto.

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