MSU Research Foundation Podcast

Accelerating Healthcare Innovation with Henry Ford Health

• MSU Research Foundation • Season 2 • Episode 2

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In this episode, David Washburn talks with Lisa Prasad, Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Henry Ford Health, and Jeff Wesley, Executive Director of Ventures at the MSU Research Foundation, about how Michigan State University and Henry Ford Health are accelerating healthcare innovation through collaboration and venture investment.

Lisa shares how Henry Ford Innovations evolved to translate research and clinical expertise into real-world impact—supporting pilots, startups, and technologies that improve care and reduce costs. Jeff discusses the launch of the MSU-Henry Ford Health Innovation Hub and $10 million Healthcare Innovation Fund, and how these initiatives are driving commercialization, attracting international startups, and strengthening Michigan’s healthcare ecosystem.

Host: David Washburn
Guests: Lisa Prasad (Chief Innovation Officer, Henry Ford Health) and Jeff Wesley (Executive Director of Ventures, MSU Research Foundation)
Producers: Jenna McNamara and Doug Snitgen
Music: "Devil on Your Shoulder" by Will Harrison, licensed via Epidemic Sound

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David Washburn:

Welcome to the MSU Research Foundation podcast. Today my conversation is with Lisa Prasad who is Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Henry Ford Health and our colleague Jeff Wesley who leads our venture team at the MSU Research Foundation. Today was a great conversation just about the partnership between Michigan State and Henry Ford and how we've injected our brand of innovations and new venture creation and venture investing into the partnership, so I hope you like the conversation. It's uh it's fast moving, and so exciting.

David Washburn:

Uh welcome to the MSU Research Foundation podcast. Uh this is Dave Washburn again, and our guest today is Lisa Prasad and Jeff Wesley. Lisa is the Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Henry Ford Health. And Jeff Wesley, you all have heard before, he is the executive director overseeing our whole venture program at the MSU Research Foundation. And today we want to talk about uh the great relationship that uh has emerged over the few past few years between MSU and Henry Ford Health and some of the new things around uh how we're going to uh leverage that relationship into economic development through innovation and commercialization and so many exciting things. So uh welcome to Lisa. And before we get into this, I wanted to also just remind our listeners that this should not be construed as legal advice or investment advice. We're just having a casual conversation. So welcome, Lisa, and welcome, Jeff.

Lisa Prasad:

Thank you. Thanks, Dave. It's nice to be here.

Jeff Wesley:

Yeah, we're looking forward to the conversation today.

David Washburn:

So before we get started, we know Jeff's background uh because he's been on the our our podcast before. But uh Lisa, tell us about um kind of your your background, sort of your from sort of undergrad on where did you go to school and what was what was your career path and sort of how did you get to where you are uh today?

Lisa Prasad:

Well, it's been a long and winding road. Um my education background is from uh I was an English major at the University of Michigan. So when people ask me how I got into healthcare innovation, they always assume one, I'm a doctor, no, I'm not, or they assume I'm a technologist, no, I'm not. I I am a liberal arts major, and uh I I'll talk about that a little bit more. But native Michigander moved to uh Philadelphia to go to grad school at the University of Pennsylvania, lived there for a number of years, and then moved back to Michigan on the classic boomerang. Okay. Um professionally, I have always worked at the intersection of institutions, innovation, and impact. Um, the three eyes, as I like to call it early on. I helped universities and health systems think differently about how they use their strength, not just their research and real estate, but also their role in the community. Um at Penn, I was part of this amazing effort called the West Philadelphia Initiatives that showed how partnerships can drive community change. And that really hooked me. So I just fell in love with these large mission-based organizations, seeing what can be done when these big trusted institutions really open themselves up to collaboration. Um, so when Henry Ford came along, it just made a lot of sense. It's this incredible place with deep community roots and huge potential to innovate. And now my focus is on building programs in partnership with Michigan State University Research Foundation, in building programs that connect startups with research and industry collaborations to improve care and opportunity right here in Detroit.

David Washburn:

Oh, that was that's great. And and I appreciate the um the mention several times in your in your intro on the on the partnership piece. And um certainly the university and Henry Ford have um what are are we four and a half or five years into the partnership uh that that that launched all of this? Um and before we get in the innovation piece, I wondered, could you could you summarize, I guess, the the 30-year collaboration that was signed in 2021? And um, you know, because it is about that sort of clinical experience with research, but also applying it in in a in a environment where you can um get access to uh you know real-world doctors and patients potentially. So can you can you talk about that a little bit before we get into the innovation side?

Lisa Prasad:

Yeah, it's a 30-year collaboration where Michigan State University is our main academic partner. We have a number of academic partners, as Michigan State has a number of partners who are in healthcare. But uh we are uh but we are wedded to Michigan State University and delighted to be so. We believe that there is a lot of good that can come from at the intersection of healthcare and engineering, at the health uh intersection of healthcare and business. Um, these academic disciplines don't exist within our system, and our patient care experience and our health care-related data don't exist within your system. And just bringing all of that together under one umbrella just gives us such opportunities to create powerful change in healthcare. So that was, I think that was the the mission of the partnership. How do we have two plus two equal five by bringing these great institutions together?

David Washburn:

Yeah. And Jeff, do you want to talk uh anything about the uh partnership prior to the innovation hub piece?

Jeff Wesley:

No, it was exciting to see the partnership formed with two incredible institutions, uh, two uh institutions committed to innovation and research and um education and training, and just the combination of what those two can do in the the space we play with innovation was uh so welcome. And uh we are happy to see the partnership formed. Um, very early on, Lisa and I got connected about on the innovation piece. Okay. Um and it's it's been a fun ride ever since in terms of what we've been able to develop as a relationship, uh the partnership between our teams and the ability to see the impact it's having on the opportunities we are presented with.

David Washburn:

Oh um, our listeners have heard us talk many times about the MSU Research Foundation and how we're kind of a separate organization from the university, but obviously uh serve serve the institution. Um many times we'll see the reference to Henry Ford innovations. And um, is can you tell us about is that a department? Is it a separate sort of 501c3? Uh this is the organization that you're the overseeing. Is that correct, Lisa? So tell us about that group and how many people are in there and um what are the types of of things that are cooking?

Lisa Prasad:

Yeah, Henry Ford Innovations is a division within Henry Ford Health. We are not a separate entity, we are fully integrated within this within this health system, which really helps us to reach into the health system for the expertise and um the assets that we need to do cutting-edge innovation. Um Dave, if you if you think about how healthcare innovation offices are set up, there's usually one of three models, and I think this is worth talking about just a little bit. The first model is an innovation office that's solely uh focused on venture investing. And their ROI is measured through the results of their investments, and they're aligned with the usually the finance department. While we do um go into that world, particularly with the fund that we're about to talk about um talk of, uh we are not that. The second model is an innovation office which is very focused on IT, so implementing new technologies, creating new technologies, uh they are affiliated with the IT side of the house. So we are not that, and we are this third model, which is really affiliated with the medical group. So we are very, very focused on how do you improve care, patient care, and outcomes. How do you uh how do you make Henry Ford a place where we have the highest caliber of clinicians and staff who want to be here? How do we actually improve patient experience? How do we lower costs? So we are very focused on um on clinical care through our innovation uh efforts. Um there's 10 of us full-time that work at the Innovation Institute, but there is not a single project that we do that doesn't have a clinical champion associated with it from what I call the mothership. And that is how we create our innovation teams. We don't put a lot of uh a lot of people full-time on these teams, but we really try to reach in and get the subject matter experts that are um that will add value to each domain that we're working in.

David Washburn:

That's great. And and Henry Ford Health also has a track record of uh of of of applying for and receiving um um NIH funding, for example. Um not every not every hospital system in the state does that kind of research. And I wondered if you could you could touch on that and and how your org is involved with that. The innovations group is involved in that.

Lisa Prasad:

Yes, yes. Uh you may be aware, but some of the listeners may not be, that we are one year into a joint venture with Ascension Southeast Michigan facilities. Right. So a year ago, we nearly doubled in size. And this is our first full year of operation. So we don't have the final results of what our research base is yet for uh for this year. But prior to the JV, we did about 200 to 250 million dollars of research uh every year. And my office is responsible for the technology transfer of the inventions and the intellectual property that comes out of that research base. So we continue to serve that purpose, and we will continue in that role as our research enterprise grows because of the MSU partnership as well as the uh Ascension Joint Venture.

Jeff Wesley:

Lisa, I was going to jump in. I I've heard the story kind of like the similar to the MSU Research Foundation, which has a history with cisplatin and carboplatin, and some of the early ideas that came um out of the university. I think Henry Ford had some early ideas that led to the innovation group being formed that I've heard Scott speak about before. Could you share some of that? I think the history is kind of cool, that some of the things that kind of prompted to more investment, more focus on innovation there.

Lisa Prasad:

Yeah, yeah. We have some really fun stories. Some of them are sad fun, some of them are fun fun. But uh without mentioning the name of any corporate or industry partners, uh, Henry Ford was the place where the robotic use of uh the use of robotic surgery and prostectomy was really was really created. There is a company out there that created these surgical robots, and originally they were created for cardiovascular surgery. And it didn't get any traction because the surgeries at that time, this is we're talking 20 years ago, the surgeries were so complex that they couldn't really apply the robot to that. So one of our clinicians said, Well, let me use this for for prostctomies and let's see how that works. And it turned out that it worked beautifully, and it created a multi-billion dollar market for this company. And Henry Ford Health didn't get anything out of that. We don't even we didn't even get uh discounts on the robots, as a matter of fact. So the thinking was that let's not give away our intellectual property for free. We obviously want to give it away for the betterment of mankind, but we also want to get something back to Henry Ford Health so that we can then invest that money in better patient care. That was one of the drivers for the Innovation Institute being formed.

David Washburn:

Yeah, that is an interesting story, and um I I think every major research organization's probably got something like that in their history where uh something.

Lisa Prasad:

It's a missed opportunity. Yeah, that's right.

David Washburn:

That's right. Well, let's talk about the um, you know, just recently um there was an announcement on the um the innovation hub. What is that and and what's going on in there?

Jeff Wesley:

Leaning into where we started, uh Lisa and I got together, we connected our groups, um, kind of just rolled up our sleeves and went to work, as you might say, about two and a half years ago. Um, what we quickly found was great synergies, the ability to get the clinical inreach, the ability to leverage both teams, kind of our startup formation uh apparatus, our portfolio. Uh, we quickly found and said, wow, this is really cool. We're we are immediately having an impact on a lot of companies and finding a lot of people that want to come partner with us and collaborate and help them uh facilitate greater commercialization faster. So you fast forward over a period of months, we were quickly running about 18 pilots at Henry Ford. Um, we are finding that it was just a lot easier with the two organizations working together to solve what were challenges previously to find the champions in the hospital to connect on next steps that were so important to these startups. So that quickly led to it's already working. This is something really cool. So we need to form a name around it, um uh kind of form the branding, get the word out more to create more opportunities for MSU, Henry Ford, and our capabilities that we thought we could bring to bear. So that led to the initial uh concept of the hub getting announced and launched. And um, with many projects, which we're very visionary, it's just nice to know it's already up and running and working very successful, and we're looking to continue to drive more success forward.

David Washburn:

Lisa, how did Jeff do? Um anything you want to add to that or uh uh supplement.

Lisa Prasad:

Well, uh I guess the only thing I would add is Jeff did great. Um, and he captured the essence of what what the hub is intended to do. Maybe I'll talk a little bit about why that's important to us, if that's okay. Yeah. So if you look at um one of the things I always talk about is demographics. If you look at the demographics by 2035, for the first time in the US, you will have more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 18. Now think about that and the impact on healthcare. You have more and more people who are going to require health care, and you have fewer and fewer people who will be able to deliver that health care. So innovations and introducing new innovations, and particularly around AI, but we can get into AI later. But innovations is um is really a strategic priority for health systems such as ours. We can't do business as usual. And if we can home grow some of those innovations based on what our needs are and based on the assets of the region, then that checks off so many boxes. So it's really a compelling argument to work with these early stage technology companies to see if we can incubate them such that they can solve some of these or address some of these big wicked problems that we have already here today and coming down the pike for tomorrow, which makes the the healthcare hub just so much more relevant to us than perhaps it may be in other places.

Jeff Wesley:

As you look into the future, we think there's huge opportunities. We see current success. And even beyond just the partnership, I think the ability to connect with the state of Michigan, southeastern Michigan, and have a huge impact, we're seeing a variety of ways that are good examples. We ran our Conquer program initially there. It's kind of been of uh a centering for all those great startups that we have in the state to come be part of this initiative and come and work with MSU and Henry Ford. It kind of draws them in. So we've seen great impact of that program. Um, probably one of the bigger surprises to us early on is the ability to attract not only companies nationally but internationally to the state of Michigan through the work we're doing. Um we're really excited about the different lanes to the comments Lisa made on the opportunity that we think we can cultivate on behalf of the partnership and on behalf of uh just just creating great startups here in the Midwest.

Lisa Prasad:

Yeah, let me just pick up on what uh Jeff said about Conquer Accelerator. We had uh last the last cohort, we had five great healthcare companies that went through that went through the accelerator. Three of them are now doing pilots at Henry Ford Health. That hit rate is really, really high for early stage companies. And uh and we're super excited by the quality of what we've seen from the from the accelerator, and it's because of the support that they've gotten in order to get to the pilot. So we we this is something pretty special that we're building here.

David Washburn:

Uh well, I really appreciate that because I've I've we've always talked about that internally with these accelerator programs, the the sooner we we can um help our companies get closer to to where their sort of area, their customer is or their area of service is, you know, the better feedback they're gonna get. And it's just gonna make them so much better. And so uh so let me just say thank you for uh helping us be the on-ramp with those Conquer companies to get uh uh you know, to have a champion and an advocate to get them closer uh to where they be. It's just it's just gonna make them so much better. Um and uh and and that's important for all the sectors that that we run these accelerators in, is just the the sooner you can get close to the the eventual customer, I think just the group's gonna be so much better. So I wanted to talk about the the venture fund. Um, you know, that's uh uh you know an important announcement that was made um you know kind of at the same time as the innovation fund and and and maybe some of the the excitement of that announcement, it was the innovation hub and the venture fund. Um but you two uh as well as our presidents at our respective institutions uh really helped sort of put this together. And um so I wonder if you could just sort of detail what it is for for the listeners.

Lisa Prasad:

Uh yes. So it came together actually at Henry Ford, we have uh been thinking about direct investing in companies for some time. But it has been clear to us that we didn't have those competencies, those skill sets in-house in order to do that. And therefore, we just never sort of moved in that direction. When this partnership occurred with Michigan State University, and we were really able to then take advantage of the skill sets that the Research Foundation has. The fact that you guys are the um the largest early stage investor in all of the Midwest and all of the and the experience and the knowledge base that comes with that, it was just a natural progression for us to say, let's let's go back to what we do best, which is really to help identify promising promising companies in healthcare. Let's leverage what you guys do best, which is to invest in these early stage technology companies and bringing those things together, creating an investment vehicle from both Michigan State and Henry Ford. Just it was a natural, it was a something that emerged very naturally, I think. And um it's interesting that both of our CEOs just signed on immediately to that concept because it's uh it's a difficult time. It's a difficult time economically for both of our institutions, and to create a $10 million venture fund right now and commit to it is not easy, but uh I think everyone saw the value in doing this, and uh so here we are.

Jeff Wesley:

Yeah, and I I think that was well said, and I I think I'll take it from the human side. When when we started working together, and you know, we we both saw the vision between the institutions and we're excited about it. But it takes a lot to see the success, and it's just been nice to work with your organizations. I think we're always on the same page. We're always working to build best practices and learn from what we're doing. And it just seemed like we were in sync that led to the hub and naturally to the discussion with the fund, where people can see the fund as we were investing from the MSU Research Foundation prior to that. It's just another level of taking the relationship up to the opportunity. And it was just nice to see the leaders of both institutions recognize that. Um, I think we're excited about how we can help the partnership moving forward as we look to the new research building coming into Detroit and the and all the expansion going on with Henry Ford to be catalytic to a lot of those efforts. But um, you know, we always talk about partnerships and collaborations, and they sometimes don't work. But in this case, it's been an it's been a great journey partnering with Lisa and her team, and our teams just work hand in hand every day and just really appreciative of that. And I want to make sure that we put that out there too.

David Washburn:

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I think for the record, the um the I guess the partners in the fund are Henry Ford Health, Michigan State University, and the MSU Research Foundation. So um I I know speaking from my perspective and our and our board, we're we're very excited about uh about what can become of this. Um it's gonna be really, really interesting because I think you mentioned it earlier, you know, you you you referenced AI and then there's devices and diagnostics and therapeutics. And gosh, there's there's gonna be a lot of opportunities to um to look at here. So it's it's gonna be really interesting to see how this group comes together to to sift through the funnel of of opportunities to to to figure out what to sort of um invest in and and what to support. Um probably not everything is gonna make it, and uh, and there's a variety of reasons why they may not, but there's gonna be a really robust opportunity set, I think, from this partnership that uh that I know I'm excited to watch.

Lisa Prasad:

Yeah. And my hope is that we will find some great companies to invest in. We will deploy the $10 million very rapidly, and then we will create a bigger fund and continue to do this great work in in Michigan.

Jeff Wesley:

Yeah.

Lisa Prasad:

But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

Jeff Wesley:

I appreciate the excitement. I'm right with you. Um, I I I I think I think like our earlier initiatives, we're already seeing a pipeline that's materializing with the work we're doing. We're already seeing new people reaching out to us as opportunities for the fund. Um, obviously they have to be curated, and we're gonna be looking at the best opportunities that align for the partnership and the organizations. But I I think it's a great time with AI and changes in healthcare. And um, this is a great time to have this early stage fund in place and just excited about what we're gonna do with it in the coming years.

Lisa Prasad:

Yeah, and we didn't we sort of glossed over the attracting the international businesses here.

David Washburn:

Yeah.

Lisa Prasad:

But maybe we can do a little bit of a dive into that, Jeff, because I think that's another very interesting opportunity. There are great technologies being created all around the world, and we have been engaged with uh the Israeli technology ecosystem for a number of years. But um you know, when they create something and they want to scale, they need to come to the US because this is the biggest healthcare market on the planet. Right. And they uh they don't always know how to enter the market. And there's a tremendous value that we can add by helping them land here to help them create a team, create a corporate structure, and then do their trial or their proof of concept at Henry Ford Health, and therefore bring these really promising companies to Michigan where they can then develop roots and hopefully grow and contribute to our economy. We've already seen uh interest from Ireland, we're beginning to see interest from Central and Eastern Europe, including Estonia. We have uh we continue to see a lot of companies from Israel, but also developing markets such as India. So I that will I think be a um really good part of our offering that uh we can put forward in the innovation hub.

Jeff Wesley:

Yeah, and I think we're working on one in Australia right now. Um, you know, I I there you go. I I do think that, you know, as leaders and as you're you're working on opportunities like this, you're looking for validation points. And to me, this was a validation point. This was a a thought that there might be those opportunities, but they've been uh materializing more than we thought. And for listeners out there, for a company to come to Michigan and get established here and get within the criteria that we can support them, it's got some work to it that has to be put in for those companies. But they see the value of the impact that they can have with our ecosystem and with Henry Ford working together. And to me, that speaks to what potentially we're creating here and the success we can have in the coming years.

David Washburn:

Oh, how do our listeners find out more? There's a website out there, I recall.

Jeff Wesley:

Yes, there is. If you go to the MSU Henry Ford uh partnership page, there's a tab on there, reference and innovation. Um you go to that tab, it'll speak to the hub and it speaks to the venture fund. Um and then there can always contact Lisa and I or our teams. Um we got some great people on our teams that are working with us. Uh Matt Okoneski on our team from the venture side and Tom Stewart from the venture creation side. Um, and Xander and Tarig and all the people that help partner here with us are all people you can reach out to, too.

David Washburn:

Fantastic. Well, our guest today has been Lisa Prasad. She's the vice president and chief innovation officer of Henry Ford Health, as well as Jeff Wesley, who is on the Foundation team and leads our venture team. Um it's been great to have you. Any closing thoughts before we we sign off?

Lisa Prasad:

Well, I guess if there's one thing that I would I would leave everyone with, it's that the feature of healthcare isn't about technology for its own sake. It's about people, it's about it's about patients who want care that fits into their lives and clinicians who want to spend more time healing and less time doing paperwork. Um, so we are super excited to create and implement technologies that will provide better, faster, more affordable health care for our patients. We're not so interested in bright, shiny objects. We're really interested in things that will impact patients' lives. And if anybody has those kinds of uh technologies that they've developed, please, please come and find us.

Jeff Wesley:

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's well said. I don't think I can probably add to that, but I'll just the only comment I'd say is uh a lot of sectors that we support, but healthcare is a special one. There's something about psychic income you can gain from uh affecting people's lives and making making a difference. And I I think I'm just really excited to um try to be part of that with Henry Ford and Lisa and what we have going here.

David Washburn:

Well, thank you both. We're gonna have you on again in due course because uh we know this is just the front end of this whole partnership, and we know there's gonna be great stories that come from this.

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