Above the Fold
Send in the Clowns!
David is a long time friend and occassional contributor to THCB. And he politely asked if the THCB audience would be interested in helping contribute to the charity he works with–please read and give what you can–Matthew Holt
The Hearts & Noses Hospital Clown Troupe provides professionally trained volunteer clowns to hospitalized children in Greater Boston and training for other clown troupes worldwide. I’m chairman of the board of directors and hope you will join me in supporting the work of the clowns by making a donation.
Hospitalized children often experience stress, fear, and anxiety, which can become a barrier to healing. Hearts & Noses clowns are specially trained to provide relief for ill children and respite for their families. Our clowns strive to uncover the hidden spirit of joy and the creative energy that lives in the heart and soul of children− a spirit that is often dampened by the sterile and sometimes frightening clinical environment. Our clowns’ central goal is to engage, empower and give choices to hospitalized children.
After a life-changing trip to Russia with famous clown and physician Patch Adams, troupe founder Jeannie Lindheim began offering a series of seminars on hospital clowning in the 1990s. Lindheim, an actor, began training clowns to visit ill and disabled children at Boston area hospitals. She formed the Clown Troupe and worked diligently to build a strong, professionally-trained group of volunteers. More than a decade later, our clowns are still all volunteers and we have helped build clown troupes throughout the world.
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Health 2.0 News launches
Today I'm very excited to tell you that Health 2.0 News is launching. We’ve had the Health 2.0 Blog for several years now and of course have extensively covered the world of Health 2.0 and the Health 2.0 Conferences on THCB. But we’ve been a little behind in tracking the news and activity that’s going on daily in the world of Health 2.0 companies.
Meanwhile the Health 2.0 organization has grown significantly to do much more than conferences. We’re now actively tracking several hundred Health 2.0 companies in a private database, we’re working on consulting projects, we have a major developer challenge program and we have more in the wings.
So from today the all new Health 2.0 News will be actively tracking industry news, showing video of Health 2.0 events, and having editorials from important Health 2.0 leaders. Please head over to Health2News.com and join us!
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How VCs Use Advice From Experts
By
Recent media articles have scrutinized the use of doctors, scientists and experts by pharmaceutical companies and hedge funds, often casting them in an unflattering light. Experts can play a valuable role, but it is a case of caveat emptor – and sometimes for the expert, as well as the organization hiring him. Biotech or medical device companies that are trying to promote new products, for example, could undermine a medical expert’s perceived objectivity if financial ties are not clearly disclosed upfront. Experts providing information to hedge funds must be particularly careful not to disclose non-public information about publicly traded companies and run afoul of insider trading restrictions.
Venture capitalists also commonly rely on personal and business expert networks to help gather investment information to make smart investments in private companies. Because early-stage venture firms do not invest in public stocks or promote independent projects, experts can work with VCs and VCs can work with experts without risk of reputation or objectivity.
Here is how I and other venture capitalists use outside experts:
Personal networks, by far, tend to be most valuable. For example, sometimes I contact a childhood friend who is now an orthopedic surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic. If CCV is thinking about investing in a product related to surgery, I ask his opinion. His input is good — and it’s free counsel from a valuable source.
Like other VCs, I also look for expert guidance inside existing portfolio companies. I’m currently working on a project related to a software system for gene sequencing, for example, and I have consulted a chief technical officer at a CCV portfolio company who is highly knowledgeable in this space.
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Conflicted
By MARYA ZILBERBERG, MD, MPH
I want to digress from our recent focus on methods and talk a bit about conflict of interest (COI for short). There has been a lot in the press lately about doctors taking money from the biopharmaceutical manufacturers, and doctors inserting unnecessary hardware into patients’ hearts and spines. All of this has been happening against the background of a low hum of an ongoing discussion of what constitutes a COI, how much is too much and for what (for example, can a doc who takes research and education dollars from a manufacturer with an interest in anticoagulation sit on a committee that develops the guidelines for prevention of thromboembolic disease?), and how to mitigate these ubiquitous and pesky COIs.
In some ways watching this discussion has been amusing, while in others it has been downright sad. Medical journals, while insisting that advertising money is OK to take (presumably because the editorial and marketing offices are separated by some sort of a fire wall), though professional societies should not be able to take this tainted education money. Professional societies, on the other hand, are running away from the accusations by tightening their continuing medical education (CME) criteria and scrambling to replace the lavish budgets derived from pharma to develop their coveted evidence-based practice guidelines. And while all the pots are calling all the kettles black, academic researchers are being barred from collaborating with the industry on research projects, and industry researchers are being precluded from presenting their data at professional society meetings. While all the time the public is being whipped into lather about these alleged systematic transgressions, and forced to cheer for the ensuing retribution.
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