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Steward Health has raised private equity and has converted from not-for-profit to for-profit. The case describes its Accountable Care Organization (ACO) and asks whether it should continue this experiment.

Claritas Genomics was formed in January 2013 when BCH spun out its Genetics Diagnostic Lab into a fully commercial entity. Claritas offered over 100 genomic tests to detect a range of conditions, including autism and intellectual disabilities, and was developing new tests that provided clearer and more relevant information for physicians to use in treating patients. Claritas wanted to increase the speed at which genomic research discoveries occurred and translate this research into better diagnostic tests. To achieve this, it planned to collaborate with other children's hospitals through a research network it was developing. BCH was the company's majority owner, and Life Technologies (Life), a major manufacturer of sequencing equipment and services, was a minority owner. By the end of the year the CEO of Claritas Genomics, Dr. Patrice Milos, had to put Claritas in a position to grow and needed to have in place the software and IT platforms-the databases, search tools, and other programs-that would help the company reach scale.

This note provides an overview of three key healthcare IT areas: electronic medical records and electronic health records, revenue cycle management, and telemedicine. This note also contains a glossary of key terms and acronyms in this space as well as exhibits detailing unit economics, market dynamics, and key players.

This is the syllabus and course outline for "Entrepreneurship in Healthcare IT and Services (EHITS), taught by Prof. Bob Higgins in the fall of 2013. Contains the course overview, objectives, goals and themes.

Tim Curran, CEO of Sample6, a start-up biotechnology company developing a novel food safety diagnostics platform, must decide how to partner with food industry players. How can he best convince leaders in this mature industry to adopt a new technology and improve food safety? Additionally, he faces a number of questions related to product development, marketing, regulatory compliance, and dynamic industry trends. This case provides an overview of food safety in the United States, and focuses on the strategic goal of transforming food safety from a "necessary evil" to a brand-enhancing differentiator.

The management team at Predilytics, a healthcare analytics firm, must decide whether to accept a Series A venture capital financing deal. The company provided analytic services to healthcare plans, typically Medicare Advantage plans, in efforts to draw conclusions from massive amounts of patient data. The company still had enough funding from a seed round to operate on a low-key basis for a few more months, but the team hoped to move forward aggressively and scale its business. They also needed to make business choices about next steps.

Rock Health was a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization offering accelerator services to spur innovation at the intersection of healthcare and technology. The company was the creation of Halle Tecco (HBS '11) and her HBS classmate Nate Gross (HBS '11), who met early in their first year at the HBS Healthcare Club meeting and decided to undertake a year-long field study that married their shared interests in healthcare, technology and entrepreneurship. Rock Health supported health-tech entrepreneurs with a startup grant of $20,000, office space and a wide variety of professional support services. Entrepreneurial teams that participated in Rock Health's programs promoted services ranging from data-driven technologies that helped manage stress to mobile tools that attempted to diagnosis medical conditions as diverse as Alzheimer's disease and foot ulcers. The case is set in August 2011, as Rock Health is wrapping up its third group of entrepreneurs in a Boston program and planning for its fourth class at the home office. The case should enable students to identify emerging challenges, evaluate Rock Health's funding model, debate the effectiveness of its incubation service and assess its long-term viability.

Kyruus is used in a course at HBS on Entrepreneurship in Healthcare IT and Services (EHITS). It describes a young company that has built a very large database on physicians. The company has had some early successful pilots with prominent customers, but it is now faced with choices on which markets to pursue. These markets each offer opportunity, but the company must make some decisions. As is often the case in early stage companies, these choices will affect a number of things, including organizational needs and capital requirements.

Generation Health, a pioneer in the new field of genetics benefit management, and newly formed company faces many strategic issues. CEO Per Lofberg is in the midst of negotiating a partnership with a major pharmacy benefit management company. As part of these negotiations, Lofberg must decide whether the time is right for such a strategic partner when Generation Health has only been founded for a year. At the same time, Lofberg must recruit for the critical position of Chief Medical Officer while also making decisions about Generation Health's stance on various regulatory issues that will affect the industry long-term.

Presents the issues faced while building an innovative company in an emerging space with new intellectual property from the perspective of a venture capitalist. Beth Seidenberg, a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), had helped create iZumi Bio, a company with ambitious prospects which she believed had the potential to become "the" definitive stem cell company. iZumi sought to bring under its banner key intellectual property (IP) from the nascent field of stem cell technology. As such, iZumi would need to acquire the rights to several groundbreaking scientific developments that had recently occurred in labs around the world. Seidenberg needed to decide whether to commit to the next major tranche of the investment. Charged with finalizing her decision in less than 24 hours, Seidenberg weighed the pros and cons of the next round of financing. Was it really possible to pull together such a broad range of IP under one umbrella? Was the international mix of IP going to be too difficult to manage? Was it too early for stem cell technology to be successfully commercialized?

In January 2001, Dick Burnham, CEO of Odyssey Healthcare, and Odyssey's Board of Directors were considering selling the hospice care company to a larger provider or making an initial public offering (IPO). With 38 hospice locations in 21 states, Odyssey had been providing care to the terminally ill since its first location opened in 1996. Since then, the company had grown rapidly through a series of acquisitions, development of new hospice locations, and organic growth. Odyssey had just realized its first profitable year in 2000-recording a net income of $3.1 million - and was still a relatively young company. In addition, the hospice industry was subject to extensive federal, state and local regulations relating to payment for hospice services and conduct of operations. Burnham was unsure how the market would react to a company with such government-dependent revenue streams. Additionally, the recent collapse of the "dot-com" boom in 2000 might make it impossible to float an IPO at all given the prevailing market conditions. On a positive note, however, healthcare companies were commonly thought to be recession-proof and thus might be a sound investment in the event of a down-turning economy. Burnham had to decide if this was the right time for an exit, and if so, what the best exit would be.

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 808006

In mid-March 2007, Chris Kryder sat in his office and thought about how to best finance his company's growth. Over the previous five years as founder and CEO of D2Hawkeye, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based healthcare analytics company, Kryder had grown the firm from a six-person start-up into a leading developer and provider of medical analytics in the U.S. He had three term sheets in hand-two from strategic investors and one from a venture capital firm. Each offer had its advantages and disadvantages and Kryder needed to decide which offer to accept.

In 2001, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated acquired the San Diego-based biotech company, Aurora Biosciences. The combination of Vertex's and Aurora's technologies would improve the flow of novel drug candidates into development. However, several questions related to the integration of Aurora into Vertex were still unresolved, the most pressing being Aurora's major collaboration with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF). Were venture philanthropy and foundation deals an appropriate funding mechanism for a public company like Vertex? How could the board of Vertex and the CFF fundamentally align the objectives of a for-profit company with those of a non-profit institution? Those were the questions faced by the Vertex executives.

NatuRi Corp. was a start up, founded in 2005, aiming to manufacture a cholesterol-lowering drug made from the byproducts of rice bran oil production. With operations split between Chennai, India and Boston, Massachusetts, NatuRi faced several challenges, including securing funding for the organization. NatuRi had captured the attention of at least four potential investors willing to offer an investment. Its managers were challenged to weigh their options and to determine which of the four potential investors currently interested in their venture would be most appropriate for NatuRi's future growth. In addition, the founders had only a short period of time to decide whether or not to accept a Seed and Series A term sheet from a well known venture capital firm. Poses the question of how the company's financing should be structured and how much equity the founders should relinquish in exchange for the start-up capital.

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 807027

Describes the U.S. FDA with particular emphasis on its role in the development of new drugs, biologic products, and medical devices today. Provides context for the drug approval process by describing the FDA's history and organizational structure.

Describes the business development process in biotechnology companies. Topics covered include: participants in the licensing process and their interests, the major steps in the licensing process, the terms that are part of most agreements, and the most contentious issues that arise in the implementation of licensing agreements.