PharmStars

We recently hosted a round of JEOPARDY! with PharmStars’ current startups — and things got competitive! 🧠💥    Each startup in our accelerator participates in #PharmaU, our comprehensive educational program designed to teach digital health companies how pharma thinks, operates, and makes decisions. We recently gave them a chance to test their knowledge in a lighthearted game of JEOPARDY!.    As one of our past participants shared:    “Loved this part of the “phantastic” PharmStars experience! A fun and challenging way to test our knowledge of the extraordinary amount of inside pharma information that few outside the industry ever get to know.”    Now it’s your turn.    Answer: This “in-house” function is responsible for providing concise and balanced scientific responses to unsolicited requests from HCPs    Can you provide the “answer” we are looking for in the form of a question? Drop it in the comments!

We were thrilled to welcome Supriya Bakshi from Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to #PharmaU for a Fireside Chat with PharmStars’ current cohort of digital health startups focused on “innovations in rare disease.”    Supriya shared insights into how Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. thinks about innovation and startup collaboration across three key areas:    🔹 Disruptive Innovation: transformational, new ideas that can fundamentally change rare disease care  🔹 Acceleration: solutions that grow the existing business through internal and external collaboration  🔹 Reach: new opportunities to extend their presence globally to reach more patients across broader geographies    Thank you, Supriya, for your openness and candor — and for helping our startups better understand how to engage meaningfully with pharma partners like Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.   #DigitalHealth #PharmStars #RareDisease #Innovation #Pharma 

Agentic AI is shaking up pharma R&D. In a recent PharmStars’ Exec Ed pharma member roundtable on #agenticAI, pharma innovation leaders picked their top 3 most promising use cases for agentic AI:     🌟  83%  Real-time data analysis during clinical trials  🌟  75%  Personalized patient monitoring  🌟  67%  Clinical trial simulation  🌟  25%  Drug target identification and screening  🌟  25%  Drug design optimization  🌟  17%  Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion, and Toxicity (ADMET) prediction    Industry-wide adoption is still evolving. During the discussion, one participant reflected…    “Sometimes you feel like everybody else is way ahead of you. But, in reality, we're all struggling with a lot of the same things — and we're probably all pretty much in the same spot.”    Pharma innovation leaders identified several barriers to implementation of agentic AI:      🌟  58% Interpretation of decisions  🌟  58% Data security/privacy  🌟  42% Ethical concerns (e.g., bias)  🌟  42% Unintended consequences  🌟  17% Data breaches  🌟   8% Implementation costs  🌟   8% Lack of real emotional intelligence  🌟   50% Other    What was behind the 50% "other"? One innovation expert said quality of data. “Garbage in, garbage out. While we'd love to have this great future, we need to ensure that the foundations are really strong.”    What “other” barriers do you see impacting the adoption of agentic AI in pharma?    #AI #genAI #Digitalinnovation #AIinPharma #PharmaInnovation #pharmatech #digitalhealth #pharma #biopharma 

It was an honor to be invited to speak with the current PharmStars cohort about a topic I'm deeply passionate about—Patient Advocacy in the pharmaceutical space. I had the opportunity to help these incredible entrepreneurs better understand how advocacy plays a vital role in shaping solutions that truly serve patients, especially in the rare disease community. Their commitment to identifying gaps in the healthcare ecosystem and developing innovative products to address unmet needs is both inspiring and promising. I’m excited about the work they’re doing to advance meaningful solutions for people living with rare diseases. A heartfelt thank you to the PharmStars team for inviting me to be part of this important conversation! Naomi Fried, Ph.D., Meredith Cohen Fried, Joanne Kamens, PhD, Justine Dees, PhD #patientadvocacy #raredisease

What does “patient advocacy” mean? At #PharmaU, patient advocacy expert Yoshika Sherring — who brings years of extensive experience leading advocacy efforts within pharma — spoke with PharmStars’ 8th cohort and shared how pharma views advocacy in the rare disease space. For pharma, patient advocacy is about deeply understanding the patient journey — from pre-diagnosis to daily life with a rare condition. This helps pharma identify unmet needs, shape internal strategy, and ultimately improve patient outcomes.    When pharma partners with advocacy groups, they may share some goals — but not all. Successful collaboration happens when both sides find common ground and align on shared needs:    🔹 Pharma’s needs:  – Bring the patient voice inside the company  – Create unbranded education  – Align with corporate objectives    🔹 Advocacy group needs:  – Raise awareness of the disease  – Improve access to therapies  – Increase research funding  – Educate patients and providers    Thank you again to Yoshika Sherring for joining #PharmaU and sharing this important perspective!    What do you think? Can digital health startups play a role in better supporting collaboration between pharma and patient advocacy groups? Share your thoughts below!    #digitalhealth #patientadvocacy #raredisease #startups #healthtech

Last week, we had the privilege of welcoming the Novo Nordisk Rare Disease team to our Cambridge office. Our discussions centered on the critical importance of collaboration in driving innovation within rare disease. The visit culminated in an insightful panel discussion, moderated by our own Laura Holberger, featuring innovators from the Boston community who are driving innovation within rare disease: Patrick R Connelly, Naomi Fried, Ph.D., Aimee Raleigh, and joining virtually, Anna Greka, MD, PhD (not pictured).   Rare diseases are more common than you think, and for people living with rare diseases, the unmet need remains high. This reality underscores the ongoing necessity for investment in rare disease research, where partnerships can play a pivotal role in advancing scientific progress.   From our conversations, three key insights stood out to me: 1. There remains a vast opportunity to leverage precision medicine in tackling rare diseases. 2. Research in rare diseases can create a domino effect: addressing one rare disease target could unravel complexities in others and may also inform treatments for more common conditions. 3. Every contributor in the life sciences ecosystem has a vital part to play in advancing rare disease research and the power of collaborative efforts to reach our common goals.   A huge thank you to our Rare Disease leadership team for joining us and to our panelists for the enriching dialogue.   #LifeSciences #Biotechnology

On World Health Day, we recognize the vital role that digital innovation plays in improving global health — and the importance of data in driving meaningful change.    This year, we're proud to highlight the graduates of the PharmStars accelerator cohort focused on Innovations in Real-World Evidence. These startups are advancing technologies that capture and analyze real-world health data — from wearables and mobile devices to novel digital biomarkers and tools — enabling pharma to generate more comprehensive, real-world insights into treatment effectiveness and patient outcomes.    We celebrate these startups for their contributions to the world of evidence-based care and to the broader mission of improving health for people around the world:    🌟BIOSTRAP - High-Resolution, Biosensor-based Digital Biomarker Platform    🌟Celero Systems - Continuous, Ingestible, One-Week, Physiological Monitoring Platform    🌟Centaur Labs - Scalable Data Annotation Platform for Life Sciences    🌟Citadel Discovery - AI Platform Using DNA-Encoded Libraries DELs for Drug Discovery    🌟Huma.ai - Powerful, User-Friendly NLP Platform Optimized for Generation of RWE    🌟nference - RWE Generation Platform Built on 11+ million AMC Medical Records    🌟Promptly Health - Advanced Analytics Engine that Harmonizes RWD to Generate Insights    🌟Scienta Lab - AI-Powered Platform for Auto-immune Diseases Modeling at the Patient Level    🌟uMed - Queryable, Dynamic Real-World Patient Cohorts for Prospective Population Research    🌟Unison - Genomics Data Brokerage Platform    🌟varient - Rare Disease Patient Community-Sourced PRO and RWE platform    #WorldHealthDay #DigitalHealth #RealWorldEvidence #PharmaInnovation #HealthData #Startups #RWE #DigitalHealthInnovation 

Every month, #PharmStarsAlumni startups continue to reach important milestones and make meaningful progress in digital health. We’re proud to share some highlights from companies that have participated in the PharmStars accelerator:   2024 Graduates 🌟 JOGO Health awarded the Aegis Graham Bell Awards for Innovation in Healthcare by the Indian government 🌟 Patientory, Inc. accepted to the Fuel Accelerator HealthTech Cohort and was a winner in the 2025 Atlanta Metro Export Challenge 🌟 Saventic Health is one of 10 finalists in the Start-Up-Med Competition by RynekZdrowia.pl and will be presenting at the 10th Health Challenges Congress (HCC) in Katowice 2023 Graduates 🌟 Health In Her HUE landed a deal with Takeda through which their community will have access to WeConnect, a platform designed to help people find clinical trials that match their health needs 🌟 NalaGenetics published "CYP2D6 Genotyping for Optimization of Tamoxifen Therapy in Indonesian Women with ER+ Breast Cancer" in MDPI 🌟 Nightingale by Health Care Originals® announced D3VC.ai as an investor 🌟 Samphire Neuroscience awarded funding from SBRI Healthcare to advance the validation of Nettle for Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder in collaboration with Paul Faulkner at Queen Mary University of London and shared that Nettle is now available to all Juniper members 2022 Graduates 🌟 Promptly Health announced participation in the "ONCATS" project to support innovation in oncology research and healthcare decision-making in partnership with Instituto Português de Oncologia do Porto (IPO-Porto), CINTESIS - Center for Health Technology and Services Research, and ULS de Coimbra, and as part of Portugal 2030 🌟 Vistim Labs has a partnership with HITLAB to validate an AI-powered brain-mapping algorithm for Alzheimer’s Disease monitoring #DigitalHealth #StartUps #Accelerator #Innovation #DigitalInnovation #HIT #MedTech #HealthTech #HealthIT

Last week was full of conferences! This time - joining PharmStars alumni panel, together with peers and new cohort participants! Longenesis took part in the first cohort and I can totally recommend it!

PharmStars’ 8th cohort is well underway, and it's been an exciting start! We recently hosted an Alumni Panel as part of #PharmaU, where our startups heard directly from past participants about their experiences — what they learned, what they might’ve done differently, and how PharmStars helped shape their engagement with pharma.    Big thanks to our alumni who joined the panel:   🔹 Emil Syundyukov, Longenesis – Fall 2021  🔹 Siddhartha Goyal, Nivi, Inc. – Spring 2023  🔹 Lucy Shores Kosturko, PhD, Social Cascade – Fall 2024    Here are a few of the reflections they shared: 💬 Emil on building relationships in pharma: “You have access to the champions from pharma — use it proactively. They gave their consent and dedicated their time. So, ask questions and start creating relationships. At the end of the day, it's not about tech (which should be regulated, certified, built well, etc.) but it's a human business. Try to understand the goals of the champions.”    💬 Sidd on the pace of working with Pharma: “In a lot of other industries, getting deals with a customer is maybe a couple of weeks' process. But when you go through PharmStars and learn about all the different stakeholders in pharma involved to get to a signed deal, you realize it requires a lot more time and patience.”    💬 Lucy on the benefits of having an education on how pharma works paired with outstanding mentorship: “Through #PharmaU, we learned all of the different players in pharma and beyond. And a lot of companies in our cohort stopped and reflected, ‘Who is our customer?’ That's where the one-on-one conversations with the mentors come in: grab as much time as you can with these experts who are being generous and willing to give you time.”    It was a thoughtful, candid conversation — and a great reminder of how valuable peer insights can be for startups navigating the path to working with pharma.    If you’re a digital health startup exploring accelerators and thinking about how to more effectively engage with pharma, we’d love to share more about what we do at PharmStars.    Reach out to learn about upcoming PharmStars accelerator cohorts at www.PharmStars.com and follow us here!    #digitalhealth #startups #accelerator #pharma #PharmStarsAlumni #healthtech