Buffalo Contingent Heading to Toronto to Talk Healthcare Innovation

On October 14th representatives from The Jacobs Institute, Kaleida Health and dig Buffalo are heading to Toronto to explain how we’re building a Health Innovation Ecosystem right here in Buffalo, NY. The announcement and RSVP info can be found here.

For those of you who don’t know what’s happening in Buffalo, we’re on the comeback trail. A couple of highlights:

• Hundreds of millions of dollars in private investment rebuilding downtown
• The Buffalo Billion — a pledge from Gov. Andrew Cuomo to invest $1 Billion to expand the Buffalo Niagara economy
• Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus — a consortium of the region’s premier health care, life sciences research, and medical education institutions, all located on 120 acres downtown.
• Thriving Startup and Tech Scene — Checkout digBuffalo, Z80 Labs and VCAMP for startups and NextPlex or Meetup for countless professional groups.

Given everything that’s happening here in Buffalo, I’m really excited to see the beginnings of a collaborative relationship with our neighbors to the north. In a recent post, healthcare entrepreneur Geoff Clapp suggests that Toronto might be the next great hub for Digital Health. He cites three key factors for this:

1. The MaRS Innovation Centre — an “Innovation Hub” with an interest in healthcare and startups. Notably, this is the site of the Buffalo panel discussion on October 14th.
2. Education System — University of Toronto Medical School and Waterloo head up a solid education system.
3. People — From MaRS to the local Health 2.0 chapter, Toronto has some top notch people leading the way.

Clapp also points out that many of the healthcare startups in Toronto are targeting the US Healthcare market. Given our proximity, entrepreneurial culture and bustling healthcare market, Buffalo can serve as an ideal jumping off point for entry into the US market. If you’re curious how that might work, attend the panel and talk to Niall Wallace of Infonaut — an Ontario-born health entrepreneur who’s company is embedded within the Buffalo ecosystem.

Given the similarity in our ongoing efforts, it makes a lot of sense for Buffalo and Toronto startups/entrepreneurs/innovators to come together. I’m thrilled to see that happening.

SIDE NOTE: If you’re in the startup scene and not looking at healthcare, read Healthcare’s Trillion-Dollar Disruption by Dave Chase. The idea that “new patient-centered population health models will cause more than $1 trillion of value to rotate from the old models to the new and create more than a dozen new $10 billion high growth markets” demonstrates the opportunity. This fact is also evident when you look at the growth in venture funding for digital health startups over the past 3 years (see chart). Finally, and most importantly, work in this market can substantially improve people’s lives. Get in there entrepreneurs…

Originally published by Algonquin on October 9, 2014.