How can startups be successful in the health area? Check out our interview with Claudio Terra, from Hospital Albert Einstein

For the Director of Innovation and Knowledge Management, more than just an idea, it requires management skills and focus on the solution of problems; Terra is one of the speakers of SP Conecta

According to the Director of Innovation and Knowledge Management of Hospital Albert Einstein, Claudio Terra, to innovate in the health area requires balancing the opening to new technologies with the search for quality. According to him, startups face a healthy tension between testing and developing what is new and focusing on the final result.

He was one of the speakers of SP Conecta, an event held free-of-charge which brought together large part of the ecosystem of support to startups in the state of São Paulo, at the headquarters of Investe São Paulo, on August 30.

Check out the full interview with him on the subject:

Investe SP: What is the future of innovation? What does a startup need to be innovative?
Cláudio Terra: The future of innovation, as always, is to find out the needs of both people and businesses, and create unique value propositions that can be adopted on a large scale. For a startup to be innovative it is necessary to have more than just an idea, project or technology, it requires management skills to create fast-growing companies. This means being able to attract and retain talents, establishing management models, marketing models, opening sales channels, managing cash flows, etc. Finally, innovation is much more than just having a good idea or developing a technology or product.

ISP: What are the challenges faced by startups to innovate in health care?
CT: To innovate in the health area requires being open to what is new and the new technologies, while it is necessary to place the patient in first place, while being conservative to invest in innovations that are safe and show evidence of good results in terms quality, outcome, convenience and cost. In other words, there is a healthy tension between testing and developing what is new while it is necessary to be cautious not to fall in love with the technology, losing focus on the result expected.

ISP: How has Einstein’s program helped companies overcome these challenges?
CT: At Einstein, we strongly adopted the concept of open innovation, which stimulates the contact and cooperation for the development of new solutions, technologies, and products with impact on health. We have relationships with major international and domestic companies, other research institutes and universities that complement the knowledge generated internally and also with startups. And sometimes all these players may be involved in the same collaborative project. In the specific case of startups, we can collaborate in many ways, for example, in the co-development of new technologies, services and products, the technical and clinical testing and validation of new products, in the adaptation of existing products to the needs of large health systems, such as is our case, and finally in the support to the dissemination in the medical community or even patients of innovations that we believe to have a positive impact.

ISP: What are the advantages for startup to undertake in São Paulo?
CT: The state of São Paulo has a very sophisticated ecosystem of innovation with research institutions, development agencies for research and innovation, wide and sophisticated consumer market, critical mass in terms of venture capital, involving angel investors, venture capital and sources of public funding to support innovation.

ISP: Is there a shortage of connection spaces, such as in the great startup hubs, among entrepreneurs, companies and the ecosystem of support?
CT: There has been a very rapid evolution in this type of connection and promotion to the ecosystem. The greatest gap seems to be among the startups, government and large companies. However, more recently, we have seen several positive changes to strengthen this type of connection.

ISP: How do you evaluate the importance of an event such as SP Conecta to encourage entrepreneurship and foster synergy between the players within the ecosystem?
CT: This type of event is crucial because one of the great challenges of startups is to scale their business. For this, it is often necessary to add sources of capital and assets that only large public or private companies have.

About SP Conecta

Held on August 30, the first SP Conecta brought together most of the ecosystem of support to startups in the State of São Paulo at the headquarters of Investe SP.

The idea was to create new connections between entrepreneurs, incubators, accelerators, academics, associations and governments to accelerate the development of startups from São Paulo. In addition, the intention was to bring startups closer to large companies and innovative corporations.

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