4 - 5 June 2015, Paris, France.Doctors 2.0 & You and FrenchTech Hub have announced a partnership to support digital health start-ups, established in France and wishing to develop in the US. According to Denise Silber, founder of Doctors 2.0 & You, "We have joined forces, Doctors 2.0 & You and FrenchTech Hub, to further trans-Atlantic exchange of digital health innovation, in general and in particular between the US and France."
Xaviere Michelot, Healthcare Practice Director, French Tech Hub (San Francisco) answered questions from Denise Silber.
Can you tell us briefly how FrenchTech Hub got started and how you help promote business between France and the US?
French Tech Hub got started to support French startups and innovative companies as they enter the North American market. As you know, this is both a very competitive and a commercially important market, so it is vital to many startups to enter it quickly. At the same time, they need to do it the proper way. Since there are so many French entrepreneurs and professionals living in Silicon Valley and in the Boston area, the two main centers of innovation in the US, and such a wealth of expertise available locally, we thought it would make sense to leverage it to help French entrepreneurs.
You are devoted to technology. How do you define "tech" and how important is healthcare (eHealth, mHealth, digital health,...) to you?
Rather than the term "tech", we almost prefer to use the term "innovative" since these days many health startups are remote from the traditional tech world and innovate in new, different ways. Within this space, if you think of healthcare for instance, innovation happens both within the traditional medtech industries, but also through this new “connected health” trend -which regroups mhealth, ehealth, digital health, telemedicine.
What do you think of the Doctors 2.0 & You event and what do you expect from the partnership?
Doctors 2.0 & You is one of these excellent initiatives that helps put France at the forefront of and in contact with healthcare innovation in Europe and beyond. We are looking forward to this partnership as a means of promoting our services, since we believe we are a great tool to new, cash-constrained but dynamic, startups that are ready for a big cross-Atlantic push.
Can you point to any early successes of FrenchTechHub?
Amplitude Laser Group develops and manufactures ultrafast solid-state lasers for scientific and industrial applications. We have supported them since their launch in the U.S. in 2009 mainly with their operational needs. Thanks to us, they have concentrated their efforts on business development and have become a multi-million dollar company thanks to the U.S. market.
People Doc provides HR delivery solutions for large corporates. With our help, PeopleDoc have successfully launched in NY and have raised $17 million in May 2014.
For further information, please visit:
http://www.doctors20.com
About Doctors 2.0 & You
Doctors 2.0 & You is “the must-attend annual digital health conference in Europe”. Taking place in Paris, for its fifth edition, on June 4-5, 2015, Doctors 2.0 & You, founded by Denise Silber, president of Basil Strategies, is the only international congress providing a 360° view of state of the art tools and services linking patients and physicians with all other healthcare stakeholders. Attendees include patients, professionals, healthcare industries, technologists, payers, government. Key topics in 2015 will include artificial intelligence, augmented reality, 3d printing, connected objects as well as mobile apps, communities, serious games, with examples of deployment in multiple medical conditions. The hashtag #doctors20 is the most tweeted in its category, with nearly 9000 participants to-date.
About French Tech Hub
French Tech Hub is a growth accelerator for French High Tech Companies in the U.S. The French Tech Hub has formed an alliance with Business France to serve IT and Life Sciences companies from all over France. The French Tech Hub is located in San Francisco and in Boston and provides a wide variety of services needed for American expansion: strategic coaching, marketing support, business development, domiciliation, working desk, subsidiary creation, administrative support, etc. The French Tech Hub was founded as an initiative of the Paris Region Development Agency, the French Ministry of Foreign Trade, Business France and BPI France.