These 6 startups made AlphaLab Health’s fourth accelerator cohort

AlphaLab Health, an accelerator born out of a collaboration between Innovation Works and the Allegheny Health Network, has launched its fourth cohort to boost health-minded startups.

Over six months, the program offers companies in the life sciences or healthcare industries resources for product development, customer insights and industry mentorship. Cohort members can expect to gain a better understanding of how to navigate both the healthcare system and the clinical and commercial development process in the earliest days of their companies.

For their participation in the cohort, the companies will receive up to $100,000 in pre-seed money, wet and dry lab space in the former AGH Suburban Campus in Bellevue, group and individualized education, and feedback from hospital executives and clinicians. AlphaLab Health gets 2% common stock in exchange. Although there are no guarantees, participating startups will also have the opportunity to raise funding from the Innovation Works Seed Fund after they’ve completed the accelerator.

According to Innovation Works, continuing to offer the accelerator is key to keeping the Pittsburgh life sciences sector growing. Here are the companies in the 2023-2024 cohort:

• D.Sole, maker of a non-invasive wearable designed to diagnose and evaluate peripheral neuropathy in diabetes patients
• Ilant Health, an obesity treatment company focusing on increasing patients’ access to obesity treatment while reducing cost for both employers and payers
• Magnify Biosciences, maker of a customized imaging service and a tissue magnification kit for precision medicine
• MetasTx, a company developing diagnostics and therapeutics with the goal of treating and preventing metastatic cancer
• Resilient Lifescience, maker of a wearable medical device designed to detect and reverse overdoses using naloxone to prevent deaths, even if no one else is around
• Testa-Seat, maker of body-contouring therapeutic positioning equipment offers support that can benefit those with mild or moderate control of their bodies

Some of these startups might sound familiar for other accolades they’ve earned recently.

D. Sole placed first on the graduate student track at Carnegie Mellon University’s 2023 McGinnis Venture Competition in March, and just participated in the LifeX accelerator’s fall cohort. The team also pitched at the inaugural RustBuilt Startup Showdown in April.

Resilient Lifescience placed first in the Richard King Mellon Foundation’s Social-Impact Investment Pitch Competition in February, and CEO Brad Holden told Technical.ly in October that the company was ready to start testing its wearable overdose detection device.

Testa-Seat won $50,000 in the Sustainability category at the 2023 UpPrize Social Innovation Challenge.

“The unique partnership between Highmark AHN and IW brings to bear the resources and know-how of a large integrated health system with that of a leading venture development organization to help early-stage life sciences companies in the region,” CEO and President Ven Raju said in the announcement. “We are excited to welcome our fourth cohort of companies to the program.”

Here’s who made the third AlphaLab Health cohort last year.

Innovation Works also runs the AlphaLab Gear program, which focuses on hardware-based startups and provides them with hands-on help building their products, as well as up to $100,000 in investment, too.