Capital Factory, an Austin-based accelerator and investor in the Texas tech world, will launch a Center for Health Innovation in Dallas’ Pegasus Park development to spur health and life sciences innovation in the Lone Star State.
The new Center for Health Innovation will be a part of Pegasus Park’s Biotech+ Hub, which also includes a 40,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art lab and office space operated by Cambridge-based BioLabs. The co-working space opened in March with Aakha Biologics and ReCode Therapeutics among the tenants.
The May 9 launch event for the Center for Health Innovation will begin with a Dallas Startup Crawl from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. The next day, UT Dallas and UT Southwestern Medical Center will present Health Supernova, a daylong event featuring a variety of speakers, such as Dr. William Cohn from Johnson & Johnson, Claire Aldridge from Taysha Gene Therapies and Amy Kruse of Prime Movers Lab.
The event will also include a Biotech+ Innovation Showcase in which five Texas healthcare startups compete for up to $100,000 and a chance to join Capital Factory.
Aldridge, the chief of staff and senior vice president of business operations at Taysha Gene Therapies, said in a statement that the Center for Health Innovation “has the potential to improve health and create new industries in North Texas by bringing together key stakeholders in healthcare and connecting them to innovators with cutting-edge solutions.”
Dallas-Fort Worth is quickly becoming a regional epicenter for health and life sciences innovation.
Startup accelerator Techstars recently launched a health accelerator program in Fort Worth in partnership with the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth. The 13-week program is designed for early-stage companies innovating physical health sectors like rehabilitation, physical therapy, performance and exercise.
Earlier this year, entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban launched the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, which provides more than 100 commonly-used medications to uninsured individuals at significantly lower prices than traditional pharmacies. The company is in the process of building a 22,000-square-foot drug manufacturing plant in Dallas’ Deep Ellum neighborhood.