ARPA-H Investor Catalyst Hub Connects Innovative Small Business With Partners on Their Path to Commercialization
Over the last several years, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) has awarded funding to small businesses developing groundbreaking new ways to tackle health-related challenges through its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.
Belle.ai, a Cambridge, Massachusetts–based company that helps healthcare professionals meet the needs of global skin healthcare, was awarded $3.5 million to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) solution designed to enable healthcare providers to remotely examine images of skin, ear, and throat disorders. The company aims to use this technology to reduce unnecessary office visits through effective digital intake and triage, thereby lowering the burden on patients and providers.
The Investor Catalyst Hub helps innovators access funding and commercialization resources to support transitioning solutions to market. The Investor Catalyst Hub connected Belle.ai to spokes within our network that could help them validate their customer segments to achieve product-market fit.
Expanding Access to Specialized Care
Belle.ai is an innovative computer vision company focused on AI for skin disorders. Its technology accurately and objectively describes skin conditions from smartphone images, enabling physicians to assess and treat dermatological cases at the point of care. This helps general practitioners and healthcare providers with limited training on skin conditions create more accurate chart notes and reduce unnecessary referrals to dermatologists.
Under its ARPA-H contract, Belle.ai and its partner, Urban Health Plan, implemented an AI solution to enable healthcare providers to remotely examine children with skin, ear, and throat conditions.
In this example, Belle.ai’s technology analyzed an image of a patient’s back and determined that the image closely matched reference images of psoriasis. Belle.ai computes objective initial assessments of skin condition characteristics, such as surface area, which helps healthcare providers assess case severity.
The company’s technology is used in more than 60 countries at over 1,000 provider sites, which ultimately helps patients who lack access to dermatologists receive care from primary care providers and provides those physicians with an innovative solution to triage cases.
Engaging Aligned Partners for Market Impact
An initial discussion revealed Belle.ai’s goal to identify and validate the right health system champions and decision-makers for their technology supporting its advancement through pilot testing and market adoption. We identified key targets within our network whose work closely aligned with Belle.ai’s goals and could serve as potential partners to accelerate their commercialization journey.
Over the course of one month, we introduced Belle.ai to nearly 70 spokes and facilitated virtual meetings with spokes interested in learning more about Belle.ai’s solution and exploring partnership opportunities.
During meetings with spoke members, Ly Tran, Belle.ai’s CEO, provided a real-time demonstration of the technology, answered questions, and offered next steps to continue conversations. “We were thrilled with the support from the IC Hub, which significantly accelerated our customer discovery effort,” said Tran. “The outreach campaign led by our partners from the IC Hub yielded multiple expressions of interest from the country’s leading academic centers of excellence and private clinics. The IC Hub has opened new commercial opportunities and given us access to new market segments for our innovative skin image analytics products.”
“This proves that leveraging our diverse and robust network is effective to help support performers at a critical juncture in their commercialization journey,” said Baindu Bayon Paicely, senior manager of Strategic Partnerships at the IC Hub and VentureWell. “We expect this spoke engagement to result in collaborations for pilot sites and integration of Belle.ai’s technology within hospital systems.”
The Investor Catalyst Hub partners with ARPA-H programs to accelerate performers’ commercialization readiness and offers our spokes opportunities to support ARPA-H-funded solutions. Apply to join the Investor Catalyst Hub network to access similar opportunities and contribute to ongoing discussions that will help inform ARPA-H programs and initiatives.