J&J, PCH Team To Help Healthcare Startups
Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has announced the formation of a new partnership with PCH, a San Francisco hardware specialist, to help startups navigate the tricky waters from prototype to market. Two subsidiaries of the companies — PCH Access and J&J Innovation — will join to form Hardware for Health, which aims to create customized business solutions for innovative products that address unmet needs in healthcare.
Fortune recently profiled Liam Casey, CEO and founder of PCH, who has been offering hardware manufacturers “end-to-end” guidance in developing their products since 1996. PCH clients range from small startups to high-end industry giants, like Apple. Casey launched Highway1 in 2013 to deal principally with startups and to troubleshoot issues for “founders in distress.”
The new venture combines PCH’s experience in engineering and manufacturing consumer hardware with J&J’s extensive market access and leadership in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. Hardware for Health is equipped to provide whatever assistance new companies may need to follow through with a successful commercial launch, whether that need is office space, funding, supply chain management, or consultations regarding product design or regulation.
“The program is designed to be a customized solution to meet the entrepreneurs and the teams where they are in their development and to identify the key technical and business milestones for their particular business,” said Stacy Feld, senior director of Consumer Scientific Innovation at J&J Innovation, in an interview with mobihealthnews.
According to Feld, the PCH and J&J partnership comes at the perfect time, as Silicon Valley is in the midst of enjoying a hardware renaissance and is focusing particularly on health and wellness solutions.
“If you look at what’s happening in hardware, there’s really a renaissance going on. There are new devices, new software algorithms, advanced sensor technologies, and novel imaging innovations,” Feld told mobihealthnews. “And as these new hardware solutions are converging on the consumer health ecosystem, that’s enabling new solutions for consumers to engage in self-care and general health and wellness.”
Fortune reports that new medical device and consumer health product startups launch every day, but the risks are particularly high in the medical field, where a product failure can result in a string of multi-million dollar lawsuits. With added expertise and industry knowledge, startups ushered through Hardware for Health could possibly avoid costly and ruinous missteps.
The Hardware for Health website maintains that the initiative is focused on getting innovative products to patients who need them and getting new companies off to a healthy start. Each entrepreneur will retain ownership of their individual product and company and, though interested companies must apply for the program, the application is free.
Feld said that the company was interested in meeting with entrepreneurs from different backgrounds who were developing a wide variety of products, as long as those products addressed a specific unmet need.
“We are interested in being part of this ecosystem and supporting startups in all of these spaces,” said Feld.