Seattle-area startup Truveta first made its existence known on Thursday, outlining an ambitious vision to use data to save lives through new innovations in patient care and therapies.
The CEO of the company is Terry Myerson, a former Microsoft executive who led the company’s Windows and Peripherals group before leaving in 2018 after a 21-year career at the tech giant.
Truveta has already hired nearly 20 people, including some of Myerson’s former colleagues from the Redmond company, and she has enough vacancies to double the size of the team.
The company is joining a growing number of startups and tech giants looking to use data to transform healthcare. It also follows a trend of tech industry veterans looking to apply their technical expertise to big health issues, often learning that the challenges are even greater than they imagined.
“As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our world, our loved ones and our daily lives, the opportunity to apply data in the development of breakthrough health solutions has never been clearer” , Myerson wrote in an article featuring the company Thursday morning. “We will pursue this vision in close collaboration with healthcare systems, life science researchers, physicians and other stakeholders in the healthcare community.
He pledged to put a strong emphasis on privacy: “We know health data is different from other data. This is the very definition of personnel. As we embark on our quest to generate knowledge and ideas for improving diagnostics and treatments, we know that we must do so with the utmost caution to protect the privacy of the people we ultimately seek to serve: patients.
The company declined to go into details about its plans, origins, ownership or financing, but public records offer some clues to its collaborations.
A trademark filing links the startup’s name to Providence Health & Services, the large Washington state-based healthcare system that has launched a series of healthcare startups in recent years. Providence also manages a $ 300 million venture capital fund that invests in first-to-mid-stage healthcare companies.
Wasif Rasheed, senior vice president of Providence and responsible for corporate development, is listed as one of Truveta’s senior members in the Washington State Company Records. Truveta’s address in its official documents is the same as the Providence office in Renton, Washington.
In response to a request from GeekWire, a spokesperson for Providence acknowledged that the healthcare system is working with Truveta, without providing details of their relationship.
“At Providence, we are focused on accelerating transformation in healthcare, quality, accessibility and a better experience for healthcare organizations, providers and patients,” said the spokesperson. speech by e-mail. “Truveta’s vision is to contribute significantly to breakthroughs in research, treatments and therapies. We are in the early stages of the collaboration and will share more information in the near future. “
Other leading members of Truveta include Dr. Bobbie Byrne, chief information officer at Illinois and Wisconsin-based AdvocateAuroraHealth; Marcus Shipley, senior vice president and chief information officer at Trinity Health of Michigan; and Lisa Foo of Tenet Healthcare of Texas.
“We are grateful for the collaboration and feedback from various health systems,” said Lisa Gurry, director of marketing for Truveta, in an email response to the questions, without confirming any of the connections the public records show. “We are in the early stages of the collaboration and will share any notable updates in the coming months.”
Seattle-area healthcare entrepreneur Peter Neupert, former CEO of drugstore.com and former healthcare tech leader at Microsoft, is also listed in the filings. Truveta “is fortunate to have Peter Neupert as an advisor,” Gurry said.
Gurry has worked at Microsoft in various marketing, communications and strategy leadership roles for over 23 years. Truveta’s Product Manager, Dr Ranjani Ramamurthy; and CTO Jay Nanduri are also Microsoft veterans.
The company’s commercial director, Dr. Ryan Ahern, is an attending physician at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital; and its director of human resources, Deb Nielsen, was previously vice president of employee experience in Seattle-area online marketplace, OfferUp.
Myerson left Microsoft in March 2018, and later that year took on two roles in the venture capital and investment world, joining Madrona Venture Group as a venture capital partner and The Carlyle Group in as an operational leader. He is expected to continue in his role at Carlyle, while moving on to the role of Strategic Director at Madrona and working full time in his role as CEO of Truveta.
In his Thursday article, Myerson wrote that “a genuine passion to help save lives and advance humanity” is a common trait within the Truveta team.
“Having lost my father to cancer at a young age, I learned early on about the tragedy of the loss,” he wrote. “I am grateful at this point in my career to focus my efforts on my passion for helping patients and their families.
