By Jeremy Martin
On September 26, 2024, Dartmouth Health and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, in partnership with Dartmouth’s Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship, Thayer School of Engineering, and Tuck School of Business, hosted the inaugural Innovation in Medicine & Healthcare Summit at the Hanover Inn in Hanover, N.H. This groundbreaking event brought together leaders in healthcare, technology, and academia to explore cutting-edge advancements in cancer therapeutics, digital health, and healthcare delivery—and their potential impact on patient care and education.
Keynote Conversation: Philanthropy Meets Venture Capital
The summit kicked off with a compelling keynote conversation between Reed Jobs, founder of the venture fund Yosemite, and Errik Anderson (D '00 TH '06 TU '07), CEO and founder of Alloy Therapeutics. The two were introduced by Steve Leach, MD, director of Dartmouth Cancer Center. In their conversation, Jobs emphasized his organization’s mission to “ultimately make cancer non-lethal in our lifetimes” through a unique combination of philanthropic and venture capital approaches. “Being an investor made me a much better philanthropist,” he said, explaining how both are critical to seeding innovation, catalyzing commercialization, and generating revenue.
Jobs and Anderson were then joined onstage by Neil Smiley (D '82) , founder and CEO of Loopback Analytics and president of the Charles H. Hood Foundation, and John Connolly (GR '01 MED '01), PhD, chief scientific officer of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Together, the group delved into de-risking strategies, data-driven improvements in treatment access, and the value that philanthropy can bring to accelerating innovation. This discussion set the tone for the full day’s exploration of innovation and its role in shaping the future of healthcare.
Emerging Themes in Healthcare Innovation
Throughout the summit, salient themes emerged. One was the critical role of multi-disciplinary collaboration in driving innovation, and another was the challenge of translating scientific research from academic labs to clinical settings. During the session, "Technology as a Driving Force for Predicting and Preventing Cancer," for example, digital health pioneer Nick Jacobson, PhD, and epidemiologist Brock Christensen, PhD—both from the Geisel School of Medicine—shared how they are accelerating the journey of innovation to impact in healthcare delivery in their respective fields.
This sentiment was underscored during remarks by Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock, PhD, as she spoke to summit attendees about what makes the Dartmouth environment so conducive to cross-discipline collaboration. And throughout the day, Jamie Coughlin, executive director of The Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship at Dartmouth, repeatedly spoke to the significance of Dartmouth’s unique “ecosystem” in driving its innovation accelerators and business development initiatives, emphasizing their vital role in bringing medical innovations to market.
“A major goal of this ecosystem is to improve outcomes,” Coughlin told summit attendees. “Our community is deeply connected, from academic science through entrepreneurship. And we’re excited to have you lean into what we’re building here at Dartmouth, which can inform industry and our healthcare systems.”
Storytelling as a Catalyst for Change
The power of storytelling in successful entrepreneurship was another major focus of the event, equally essential for transforming promising discoveries into tangible benefits for patients and healthcare systems.
This fact was evident when plenary speaker and philanthropist Richard Levy (D '60), PhD, shared his story of caring for his late wife, Susan, after she became ill. Being her primary caregiver, Levy said, inspired him to seek new ways to improve healthcare quality and delivery. This notably led to his continued support of the Susan & Richard Levy Health Care Delivery Incubator, a joint venture between The Dartmouth Institute and Dartmouth Health that funds innovative healthcare delivery solutions. Since its launch in 2019, the incubator has enabled researchers to think creatively, recognizing that even seemingly small changes can have an outsized impact. The experience also illuminated for him the vital role of social services, and the need for innovative solutions to lower costs and navigate complex healthcare systems.
With equal poignancy, Liya Shuster-Bier (D '10), founder and CEO of Maia Oncology, recounted her battle with cancer and how undergoing treatment led her to create what she calls, “the first virtual comprehensive primary care clinic for cancer patients and survivors in the country.” Her leap from patient to innovator illustrated the transformative potential of personal experiences in driving healthcare advancements.
A Shift in Medical Consciousness
During the summit, many speakers argued that a significant shift in medical consciousness was afoot. As physicians increasingly rely on AI and other novel technologies, they are beginning to frame health not just as the absence of disease but as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being.
During an afternoon panel focused on healthcare delivery for young patients, Matt Hand, DO, a pediatric nephrologist and integrative medicine specialist at Dartmouth Health Children’s, said a radical shift in the way we view wellness was required to advance healthcare access and delivery—particularly for young patients. Hand says his own recovery from arthritis helped him to realize the “need to bring more integrative techniques like nutrition, movement, and stress-reduction” into his practice, “so that every single patient that comes to Dartmouth can receive better healthcare in the early years of their life.” Hand's holistic approach was echoed by fellow panelist Lynn Fiellin, MD, professor of biomedical data science at Geisel, who discussed the significance of preventative care and early interventions for adolescents—an approach recently featured in The Boston Globe just days before the summit.
Dartmouth’s Unique Position in Shaping Healthcare’s Future
The summit also featured discussions on the future of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare, with experts from Dartmouth and beyond exploring potential applications and ethical considerations of AI in medical diagnosis and treatment. Lisa Marsch, PhD, director of The Center for Technology and Behavioral Health at Dartmouth, shared her excitement about the future of digital behavioral health therapeutics and AI-driven technologies to boost access to mental health resources and psychiatric treatment.
The summit concluded with several calls to action. A discussion between summit attendees and Coughlin, Marsch, Leach, and Estevan Garcia, MD, MPA, Dartmouth’s chief health and wellness officer, focused on what could be done to more closely align research, entrepreneurship, and venture capital to ensure that the best ideas are supported and brought to market.
And in his closing remarks, Geisel Dean Duane Compton, PhD, echoed Coughlin’s opening words about Dartmouth’s unique ability to drive innovation. “This summit brings together some of the brightest minds in healthcare and technology,” he said, “fostering collaborations that will undoubtedly lead to shaping the future of medicine, improving patient care, and advances in medical research.”
