Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Mobile and Med Tech Start-Ups: the Next Great Wave in Ontario?

Last week Barry Gekiere, the tall drink of water who is the new chief of Ontario's Investment Accelerator Fund, coyly announced that he has a fresh $7 million available for life sciences and med tech startups. This leads me to ask application developers, what are you waiting for?

Ontario has one of the largest telemedicine networks in the world. The province is poised to be one giant early adopter of enabling services and technologies that would leverage this network. We also have one of the most highly skilled populations of application developers, and a track record for building profitable services plays(if there's one thing Canada has always done well, it's build service providers - look at the sale this June of Stream the World to Triton Digital Media).

Teledialysis, remote monitoring of medication regimes, wireless monitoring of cardiac performance - start-ups trying to deliver solutions that streamline healthcare services delivery have found ample venture (and strategic backing) south of the border. Ontario has significant drivers of growth in this space - stay tuned.