Innovation Institute LLC named Christina Waters executive-in-residence at its lab-incubator-accelerator in an effort to begin genomic medicine work.
The for-profit group in La Palma looks for ways to advance healthcare industry practices.
It’s co-owned by five nonprofit hospitals and systems, which locally include St. Joseph Hoag Health in Irvine and Children’s Hospital of Orange County.
It runs about 15 service providers that provide cash flow for its operations; a venture capital fund for healthcare startups; and a lab in Newport Beach that develops healthcare concepts.
Waters is at the Newport Beach lab.
She is chief executive of Rare Science Inc. in Encinitas, a nonprofit research organization that she founded to help accelerate identification of treatments for patients with rare diseases. She previously served on the board of Aliso Viejo nonprofit Global Genes, and was a consultant at Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLC.
Her work has coalesced around genomic or “personalized” medicine that has often included finding ways to connect patients with innovative treatments keyed to their particular genetic makeup.
“We are open to genomic medicine,” said Chief Executive Joe Randolph. The group will work with an international university to commercialize its genomic data bank. Opportunities include drug repurposing, wellness management and personalized medicine.
Innovation Institute has and will continue to shy away from developing drugs on its own because of the time and cost required. It plans to instead partner with pharmaceutical companies that have the capability and infrastructure.
Innovation Institute will “find ways to work with the industry, and Christina can help us on that,” Randolph said.
465 Workers Cut
North Coast Rehab Inc. will close its facility in Fountain Valley and lay off 465 employees by May 31, a state Employment Development Department Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filing said.
North Coast provided services that included physical, occupational and speech therapy; a letter with the WARN filing said more than 90% of its employees are medical professionals in those categories.
The letter also said the facility in Fountain Valley was “NCR’s principal place of business,” but it was unclear if the company had other OC locations it ran or that had licensed its name.
Public material for North Coast Rehab showed a Dana Point facility; a Livermore headquarters; offices in northern California; and services offered in three states.
Its website wasn’t operational, and phone calls and emails to the Dana Point facility weren’t returned.
Visibility
Irvine-based Masimo Corp. added a display system called Kite to its Root patient monitoring system for hospitals.
Masimo makes noninvasive patient monitoring devices. Root is a central platform for connecting monitoring devices of Masimo and other device makers.
Root is meant to address the challenge of how these devices—often stand-alone units—can communicate with each other, similar to how a smartphone can become a bundle of various apps and other devices that work in sync.
Kite is a supplemental display system that connects—wired or wirelessly—to Root and displays the devices’ data on a smart TV, like connecting a larger monitor or TV screen to a smaller device for easier viewing.
Root can show many measurements, including hemoglobin, carboxyhemoglobin, oxygen content and saturation, pulse rate and brain function.
If the large amounts of data are difficult to read on Root’s smaller display, Kite can project it onto a bigger screen to “minimize clinician distraction and maximize focus on the patient and relevant data,” Masimo Chief Executive Joe Kiani said in a statement.
Stake
MYnd Analytics Inc. director John Pappajohn and Czech Republic investor RSJ Investment SICAV upped their stakes in the predictive analytics software maker to 506,290 and 625,704, shares, respectively—about 20% and 26% ownership of Mission Viejo-based MYnd’s 2.53 million outstanding shares.
Shares traded recently at about a $15 million market cap. The company last fall completed a 1-for-200 reverse stock split, converted a $6 million note into common stock, and eliminated 99% of outstanding warrants.
Its analytic software is intended to help provide personalized mental healthcare for behavioral disorders that include depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Bits & Pieces
Online physician and hospital information provider Healthgrades Operating Co. Inc. recognized 18 of Prime Healthcare Services’ hospitals for patient safety excellence. Three are in OC: West Anaheim Medical Center in Anaheim; Garden Grove Hospital Medical Center; and La Palma Intercommunity Hospital. Prime owns 44 acute-care hospitals in 14 states. … Substance-use disorder treatment center Ashley Addiction Treatment, a subsidiary of Ashley Inc., will honor Rebecca Flood as a national ambassador for recovery and the advancement of women. She is chief executive of the women-only addiction treatment center New Directions for Women in Costa Mesa.
