J&J Innovation Announces JPOD to Accelerate Healthcare Innovation

Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC today announced agreement to launch the Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS (JLABS) JPOD @ Philadelphia (JPOD @ Philadelphia) in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) to accelerate healthcare innovation and commercialization in Philadelphia and beyond. The JPOD, located within the University of Pennsylvania’s Pennovation Center, a two-year-old full-service business and technology incubator, is a networking hub which includes a secure telecommunications conferencing system to connect regional innovators to the Johnson & Johnson Innovation network. The goal of the JPOD is to identify and accelerate the development of early-stage healthcare solutions from the Philadelphia region’s life science ecosystem that address significant unmet patient and consumer needs in medical devices, pharmaceuticals, consumer and health technologies.

The JPOD will also support those innovators with training, mentoring and networking programs designed to equip them with a mix of resources to help enable their success. To catalyze the search for entrepreneurs fostering the next-generation breakthroughs in health innovation, JLABS, in collaboration with Pennovation, will launch the JPOD @ Philadelphia QuickFire Challenge. The individuals or teams who submit the most promising solutions will be given an award to further accelerate their innovations. The winners will also have access to educational programs and mentoring from the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies global network of experts. The JPOD @ Philadelphia QuickFire Challenge will be launched on the Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS website soon at https://jlabs.jnjinnovation.com/quickfire-challenges.

“Healthcare innovators are mission driven, smart and ambitious, but their game-changing ideas have a long, risky and expensive journey to reach the patients and consumers. By providing access to the expertise and resources of the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies, we hope the innovators in Philadelphia and across Pennsylvania will increase their probability of making a difference for all of us,” said Melinda Richter, Global Head, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS. The JPOD @ Philadelphia is the first JPOD that Johnson & Johnson Innovation has opened in the United States, following the announcement of the first JPOD in Alberta, Canada (JPOD @ Alberta), which was announced in 2017 in collaboration with the University of Alberta in 2017. – Medical Buyer Bureau