Healthcare company-building profile
Bear's Den
Hackensack Meridian Health
Source-based profile
Program at a Glance
- Program type
- Accelerator
- Program category
- Health system accelerator
- Organization
- Hackensack Meridian Health
- Organization type
- Hospital or health system
- Location
- Edison, New Jersey
- Company stage served
- Not publicly documented
- Cohort or participation model
- Not publicly documented
- Investment or funding offered
- Not publicly documented
- Published investment terms
- Not publicly documented
- Equity or fee model
- Not publicly documented
- Clinical or hospital connection
- Yes
- Application status
- Active
- Founded
- 2017
Public description
About the program
Bear's Den is Hackensack Meridian Health's innovation and investment program, launched in 2017, that convenes quarterly panels to evaluate healthcare ideas and inventions from entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, partners and the system's own 36,000 team members. Selected concepts receive strategic partnerships, funding and other support, and external companies can receive direct equity investment from the health network. Hackensack Meridian has used a dedicated fund to make these investments, including a $25 million vehicle reported in 2018. The internal track has produced clinical and operational improvements sourced from nurses, physicians and frontline staff across the network's hospitals. It functions as both an accelerator for outside companies and an internal idea-funding mechanism.
What the program publicly emphasizes
Focus areas and features
- Category: Health system accelerator
Publicly documented people and network
Program leadership and alumni
- Program leader
- Sandra Powell-Elliott — Vice President and Chief Innovation and Commercialization Officer
- Notable alumni named in public materials
- Used a reported $25 million fund to invest in Pillo Health in 2018; made an equity investment in Alloplex Biotherapeutics; a single 2022 internal cycle drew more than 100 submissions and funded six winning team-member ideas spanning ICU cable management, medication reconciliation, pressure injury prevention, opioid-reduction ERAS protocols, ICU early mobilization and barcoding of tube-fed nutritional supplements
Sources
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