A nationally renowned research university, a pre-seed investor, and an insurance company walk into a bar…

And create a startup accelerator.

Johns Hopkins University, venture capital (VC) firm Techstars, and not-for-profit payer CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield announced a partnership in late August to create a 13-week program that supports early-stage companies looking to improve healthcare with artificial intelligence (AI).

The partners plan to invest in startups in the health tech, medtech, and biotech fields, according to an August 23 press release. The accelerator, based in Baltimore, will provide the companies with guidance on navigating the healthcare and regulatory landscapes.

“By collaborating with Techstars at the intersection of healthcare and AI, Johns Hopkins aims to bring more entrepreneurs to our ecosystem and catalyze more startup activity to bring high-impact healthcare innovation to market,” Myra Norton, head of innovation, startup, and ecosystem acceleration at Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures, said in the release.

Keep reading here.—MA

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Many conversations around healthcare for people with obesity have focused on one thing lately: GLP-1s.

But weight loss drugs are just one part of weight-inclusive healthcare, according to Brooke Boyarsky Pratt, the co-founder and CEO of knownwell.

Knownwell, which started serving patients in 2023, is a primary care clinic for people with obesity. Designing the Massachusetts-based facility to have exam tables with built-in scales, wider doors, and larger blood pressure cuffs, Boyarsky Pratt set out to make the healthcare experience more accessible for a group that’s been historically marginalized in healthcare.

Boyarsky Pratt spoke with Healthcare Brew about what successful weight-inclusive care looks like, especially during the current GLP-1 craze.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What does it mean to grow weight-inclusive primary care during the current GLP-1 craze?

Super interesting time, right? The positive is, patient awareness that there is medical intervention for weight management is at an all-time high because of GLP-1s. Where that actually helps long term, with the stigma, is understanding obesity as a disease state. The [American Medical Association] said that obesity is a disease in 2013. But before the GLP-1craze, I think people still defaulted—and unfortunately, some physicians, too—to seeing it as a lifestyle failure. And I think these amazing pharmaceutical interventions coming out are helping people see it as a disease.

Step one in reducing stigma is understanding that this is a disease state, not a personal failing or moral failing of a patient, and that has meant that a lot more patients are seeking treatment or seeing once again that healthcare is a place that can help them. From “a rising tide lifts all boats” kind of thing, for knownwell, it’s really helpful that patients are starting to feel more confident in the idea of “There may be something there for me,” instead of getting shamed by a clinician.

Keep reading here.—CM

Pfizer and life sciences incubator Flagship Pioneering announced on August 28 that they are partnering on two new research programs through Quotient Therapeutics, a Flagship-founded biotech research company.

Quotient, working with Flagship’s drug development unit, will analyze somatic genetic mutations in tissues of people with heart and kidney diseases in order to find treatments, according to a press release.

Most investigations into the genetic causes of heart disease, according to a review published in 2022, focus on hereditary mutations. But somatic mutations—which occur after conception and continuously throughout a person’s lifetime—have also emerged as potential culprits over the last few years, the review found. Multiple studies have also linked somatic mutations to autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease.

Quotient’s somatic genetics platform made it a perfect partner for this investigation, Bill Sessa, SVP and chief scientific officer of internal medicine research at Pfizer, said in the release.

Keep reading here.—CC