Health 2.0 Launch! Finalists Announced

September 22, 2022 - By Matthew Holt

Since we first put it on at Health 2.0 in 2008, Launch! has introduced over 45 new companies and products, including Unity Medical, Remedy Ventures, TheCarrot, and the WSJ’s 2010 top (and not just in health!) start-up company, Castlight Health. Launch! is the first time a company has demoed at a conference, and the product must either be coming out soon or have been in very limited beta to this point. This year, we’re seeing some larger better funded companies on Launch! but everyone’s had to compete to get on and there are some teeny start-ups here that you’ve never heard of that might just blow you away. It’s 10 continuous 4 minute demos, and the winner gets a main stage spot next year, not to mention bragging rights. Who wins? The audience decides. Yes you can still get one of the last few tickets (but we’ll sell out in next day or two).

Below (in alphabetical order) for the first time, we’re thrilled to announce the Launch! finalists for 2011:

• Basis-There’s been lots of excitement in the Health 2.0 offices about getting hold of one of these devices. It looks like a watch but it tracks heart rate more than time. CEO Jef Holove will finally show us what they’re like.
• Clarimed-CEO Nora Iluri will show us her ambitious attempt to measure devices and much more in health care and communicate the results to lots of constituencies including consumers
• CareCoach-Almost everything we hear in a doctors office is lost by the time we get to the parking lot. But a visit to the doctor is an expensive and important time that should be captured, reviewed and shared with family. CEO Jeff Kozloff shows how CareCoach does that.
• GLU-Janak Joshi is  Executive Director of the TD1 Exchange, funded by the Helmsley Foundation to improved the lives of those with Type 1 Diabetes. TD1 has had a tissue bank up for nearly a year, but this is the first glimpse of their really exciting linked social network, GLU
• GoodRx-CEO Doug Hirsch is a Health 2.0 veteran, and founded DailyStrength.org. Now he’s back with GoodRx which has a simple to say but hard to achieve mission. How do you find the best price on drugs?
• HealthPer-Is there room for another wellness and health promotion company aimed at improving employees’ health engagement and productivity using techniques from gaming? Founder Amit Gupta & COO John Hammitt think that there is if you do it better. HealthPer is the result.
• Medify-Medify re-imagines the health search engine for consumers and wraps a health community around it. CEO Derek Streat founded it following struggles finding information about his daughter’s illness.
• Numera Social-We’ve shown health apps on Facebook before but Numera Social (a sister company to Numera, the former iMetrikus) may be the most aggressive attempt yet to use Facebook as a social health management platform. Melissa Crounse, Director, Content Business Development is our guide. Can health really work on Facebook? We hear it‘s big for games involving sheep!
• 1 + 1 Labs-Wired’s Thomas Goetz wrote an article last year about producing more useful lab information and one this year about Feedback loops. Now he has a new company which combines both.
• WellnessFX-In the 1990s Jim Kean’s Sapient Health Networks was one of the first acquisitions for WebMD. Jim’s big bet is that the future of health is personalized testing and treatment, WellnessFX is his play to bring that to the masses.