Orange County Business Journal | Innovation Institute Wants to Add Genomic Work
La Palma Facility Further Diversifies
Innova
tion Institute LLC named Christina Waters executive-in-residence at its lab-incubator-accelerator in an effort to begin genomic medicine work.
The for-profit group in La Palma looks for ways to advance healthcare industry practices.
It’s co-owned by five nonprofit hospitals and systems, which locally include St. Joseph Hoag Health in Irvine and Children’s Hospital of Orange County.
It runs about 15 service providers that provide cash flow for its operations; a venture capital fund for healthcare startups; and a lab in Newport Beach that develops healthcare concepts.
Waters is at the Newport Beach lab.
She is chief executive of Rare Science Inc. in Encinitas, a nonprofit research organization that she founded to help accelerate identification of treatments for patients with rare diseases. She previously served on the board of Aliso Viejo nonprofit Global Genes, and was a consultant at Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLC.
Her work has coalesced around genomic or “personalized” medicine that has often included finding ways to connect patients with innovative treatments keyed to their particular genetic makeup.
“We are open to genomic medicine,” said Chief Executive Joe Randolph. The group will work with an international university to commercialize its genomic data bank. Opportunities include drug repurposing, wellness management and personalized medicine.
Innovation Institute has and will continue to shy away from developing drugs on its own because of the time and cost required. It plans to instead partner with pharmaceutical companies that have the capability and infrastructure.
Innovation Institute will “find ways to work with the industry, and Christina can help us on that,” Randolph said.
Excerpted from Orange County Business Journal
