Houston Methodist receives $25M gift, renames department of medicine

med funding

Houston Methodist will rename its department of medicine the Houston Methodist Charles W. Duncan Jr. Department of Medicine. Photo courtesy Houston Methodist.

Houston-based nonprofit The Duncan Fund has awarded a $25 million gift to Houston Methodist's department of medicine to establish new endowed fellowships, streamline complex care and bring artificial intelligence into the fold to develop more personalized treatment plans.

In turn, the health care system announced that it will rename the department the Houston Methodist Charles W. Duncan Jr. Department of Medicine.

“We are deeply appreciative of the Duncan family’s support, which allows us to further programs at the intersection of personalized medicine and preventive health care to benefit our patients,” Dr. Eleftherios Mylonakis, chair of the department and the Charles and Anne Duncan Presidential Distinguished Chair, said in a news release.

The department of medicine is Houston Methodist's largest, and comprises 14 clinical programs, ranging from general medicine to highly specialized care, as well as research and education.

According to Houston Methodist, the latest grant from the Duncan family will:
  • Coordinate complex, multidisciplinary care by hospitalists
  • Implement programs that leverage data and AI to tailor treatments and preventive strategies
  • Establish five endowed fellowships, including a new fellowship for students known as MedTech Innovator

“Our vision is to redefine how care is delivered in our country by creating a national model for true continuity — one that follows the patient across every transition, from home to hospital and back again,” Mylonakis added in the release. “We are also advancing a deeper understanding of health span, shifting from reactive treatment to a proactive, lifelong strategy that maximizes not just how long we live but how well we live.”

The Duncan family has been a longtime supporter of Houston Methodist—and Houston organizations at large. The late Charles Duncan Jr. sat on the system's board for decades, and his son, Charles “Carlos” Duncan III, serves on the Houston Methodist Hospital Foundation Board. Additionally, the family established the Charles and Anne Duncan Scholars Program and endowed chairs in nephrology and endocrinology.

Charles Duncan Jr. is also the namesake behind Rice University's Duncan Residential College and was one of the founders of the Greater Houston Partnership. He served as Secretary of Energy during the Carter Administration.

From Your Site Articles
A handful of Houston startups were selected for a national accelerator program. Photo via Getty Images

4 Houston startups selected for preeminent medtech accelerator

ready to grow

Four Houston startups have been selected for the 2023 cohort of the MedTech Innovator’s four-month accelerator program.

Los Angeles-based MedTech Innovator, which bills itself as the world’s largest medtech accelerator, will award $800,000 in funding to winners of its competitions throughout the 2023 program. The grand prize is $350,000.

Almost 1,200 startups applied to participate in this year’s accelerator. From that group, MedTech Innovator, its corporate partners, and more than 400 judges picked nearly 200 candidates for in-person pitching and partnering events. Sixty-one startups ultimately were chosen for the 2023 cohort, which kicks off June 14 and 15.

Forty-two of the 61 startups will participate in MedTech Innovator’s corporate mentorship program, and five companies will join a plastic surgery accelerator in conjunction with the American Society for Plastic Surgeons.

MedTech Innovator says more than 500 startups have completed its accelerator program and have secured $6.8 billion in follow-on funding.

“We are proud of our stellar track record of identifying and perfecting the most innovative medtech startups in the world,” Paul Grand, CEO and founder of MedTech Innovator, says in a news release.

The four Houston companies selected for the MedTech Accelerator’s 2023 cohort are:

  • Ankr. The startup (whose name is pronounced “anchor”) provides a caregiving platform for cancer patients in the U.S. As of 2022, there were an estimated 18.1 million cancer survivors across the country. The company won The Ion’s Houston Startup Showcase in 2021.
  • NeuraStasis. The startup is developing an electrical stimulation device to delay the effects of acute ischemic stroke. This type of stroke happens when blood flow to the brain decreases. Acute ischemic stroke affects about 700,000 people in the U.S. each year. The company was selected for last year’s cohort of the UCSF Rosenman Institute’s Rosenman Innovators program.
  • Nininger Medical. The startup is working on a device for minimally invasive replacement of the tricuspid valve. Today, an estimated 1.6 million Americans experience tricuspid regurgitation. This type of heart disease occurs when the tricuspid valve’s flaps don’t close correctly. In 2021, the company received a $256,000 National Science Foundation grant.
  • Prana Thoracic. The startup is developing a tool for minimally invasive removal of lung tissue in lung cancer patients. In March, the company announced $3 million in series A funding.

Last year, three Houston companies were selected for the program. The startups — Ad Vital, Corveus Medical, and CorInnova.

Over 1,000 companies applied to participate in the 2023 MedTech Innovator Accelerator, 200 pitched in person, and 61 startups were selected. Graphic via https://medtechinnovator.org/

Three Houston-based health tech companies were announced to have joined the 2022 cohort of MedTech Innovator. Photo via Getty Images

3 Houston health tech companies join global accelerator cohort

Three Houston-based medtech startups are getting a big boost from a medtech accelerator.

The startups — Ad Vital, Corveus Medical, and CorInnova — have been chosen from this year’s cohort for MedTech Innovator, an international accelerator that helps companies that created health care technology. In all, 55 startups are involved in this year’s four-month accelerator program.

Ad Vital and Corveus Medical also are participating in MedTech Innovator’s corporate mentorship program, while CorInnova is one of five startups picked for the pediatric accelerator track.

MedTech Innovator’s 10th annual program kicked off in mid-June at the MedTech Innovator Summit in Mountain View, California. Leaders from each of the 50 startups attended networking events and workshops with MedTech Innovator partners and other industry professionals. Members of this year’s cohort also were featured June 17 at the WSGR Medical Device Conference in San Francisco.

Only 5 percent of applicants were accepted for this year’s accelerator program. Earlier this year, MedTech Innovator held in-person pitch events in five cities, including Houston.

At the conclusion of the 2022 program, MedTech Innovator will award $500,000 in cash and in-kind prizes at this October’s MedTech Conference in Boston. The grand prize is $350,000.

“Over the past nine years, MedTech Innovator has established a unique track record of identifying and supporting leading startups, with 95 percent of our graduates either still in business or having been acquired,” Paul Grand, CEO of MedTech Innovator, says in a news release.

Here’s an overview of what Ad Vital, Corveus Medical, and CorInnova do:

  • Ad Vital’s app helps medical practices through sales, marketing, and operations. For instance, the app automatically organizes sales campaigns aimed at converting customer leads via text messages, emails, and Facebook messages.
  • Corveus Medical’s catheter device is designed to prevent heart failure. More than 6 million American adults experience heart failure. The company is also among five selected to pitch in October for a competition from the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation.
  • CorInnova’s minimally invasive device is engineered to treat congestive heart failure, particularly infants. Each year, about 10,000 babies born in the U.S. have critical heart defects that often require surgery or other procedures.
Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Axiom Space officially redomiciles its headquarters in Texas

space city

Axiom Space has claimed Houston as its operational home since 2016. And now it can call Texas its official legal headquarters, too.

The spacetech company, which is developing the first commercial space station, Axiom Station, has officially redomiciled its legal headquarters from Delaware to Texas, Axiom announced this week.

Axiom employs approximately 700 people, the majority of whom are in Texas, according to a news release. Its Assembly Integration and Test Facility was built as an anchor of the Houston Spaceport, and the company is also developing next-generation spacesuits at its Houston-based spacesuit lab.

“Texas has demonstrated, consistently and deliberately, that it wants innovative companies to thrive here and has built the policy and regulatory framework accordingly,” Jonathan Cirtain, CEO and president of Axiom Space, said in the release. “For Axiom Space, establishing Texas as both our operational and legal home puts us squarely in a state that understands our mission, supports our industry, and shares in what we are working to achieve.”

Axiom touts Texas's "financial and infrastructural commitments" to the space economy as reasons for the move, including programs and grants from organizations such as the Texas Space Exploration & Aeronautics Research Fund (SEARF), the Texas Space Commission, and the Texas A&M Space Institute.

Axiom was previously awarded a $5.5 million SEARF grant for the development of its orbital data center capabilities last year.

The news comes as energy giant ExxonMobil also announced concrete plans to redomicile its legal headquarters in Texas. Exxon's board of directors unanimously recommended redomiciling in the Lone Star State in March. The company announced this week that the move would become official July 1. The company's operational headquarters is based in Spring, Texas, a Houston-area suburb.

Houston cleantech, space startups named to World Economic Forum cohort

top honor

Two Houston-based startups have been selected to join the World Economic Forum's Technology Pioneers community.

The two-year program aims to help mission-driven, early-stage start-ups scale their innovations through multi-stakeholder initiatives, co-creating partnerships and other gatherings for community members. One-hundred startups are selected each year from around the globe, this year hailing from 23 countries and working in AI, energy, space, biotech markets and more.

Cleantech startup Vaulted Deep was one of 11 energy and climate companies to be named to the cohort. Julia Reichelstein and Omar Abou-Sayed founded the company in 2023. Its technology injects excess organic waste underground to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Last year, Vaulted Deep inked a 12-year deal with Microsoft to remove up to 4.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the environment.

The startup has earned several accolades in recent years, including a No. 3 spot on Fast Company’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2026. It was also recently named to market intelligence and advisory firm Cleantech Group's annual Global Cleantech 100 list for a second year in a row.

"Waste management is one of the world's great invisible infrastructure systems ... The need for new infrastructure is growing as disposal challenges become more complex and regulations evolve. Vaulted is building the first new disposal pathway for organic waste in decades by putting it deep underground, permanently," the company shared in a LinkedIn post. "This year, we're joining the World Economic Forum's 2026 Tech Pioneers alongside innovators working on the many interconnected challenges shaping our future."

Houston-based Venus Aerospace was also selected to join the cohort, along with six other spacetech companies. The company was founded in 2020 by Sassie and Andrew Duggleby.

The startup specializes in next-generation rocket engine propulsion as a cleaner alternative to traditional combustion engines. The company's rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) burns fuel more efficiently and completed a successful high-thrust test flight last year. Venus says it’s the only company in the world that makes a flight-proven, high-thrust RDRE with a “clear path to scaled production.”

"Frontier technologies matter most when they expand what people, industries, and nations can do," Sassie Duggleby, co-founder and CEO of Venus, said in a news release. "For Venus, RDRE does not just represent a more efficient engine. It is a foundation for faster movement, more capable space systems, and new forms of connectivity across the planet. Being named a Technology Pioneer validates the potential of this technology to help shape a future where distance is less limiting."

---

This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Houston Methodist receives record $110M gift, names future tower

historic gift

Houston Methodist has received the largest gift in the health system's history to establish new funds for neurological, neuroscience, and women’s health research and treatment.

The $110 million gift comes from Houston-based The Brockman Medical Research Foundation, which supports education and research in the science, medicine and healthcare fields. In response, Houston Methodist announced that it will name its forthcoming 26-story hospital facility the Brockman Centennial Tower.

The tower’s entrance will be named the Anna Margaret Bellows Centennial Hall to honor Anna Margaret Bellows, a young camper who died during the Camp Mystic flooding last summer.

“This extraordinary gift accelerates discovery and transforms how care is delivered,” Dr. Marc Boom, president and CEO of Houston Methodist, said in a news release. “We are grateful to The Brockman Medical Research Foundation for its incredible generosity and vision that will help change the lives of generations of patients. Naming Centennial Tower in recognition of this gift reflects the scale of this commitment and its impact on the future of neuroscience, neurological care and women’s health.”

The gift will be divided into two parts:

  • $100 million will go toward creating an innovation fund within the Houston Methodist Academic Institute and the Houston Methodist Neurological Institute
  • $10 million will be devoted to Houston Methodist's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology

“This tremendous gift will accelerate translational research that broadens our understanding of neurological and other diseases,” Dr. Jenny Chang, president and CEO of the Houston Methodist Academic Institute, added in the release. “It will allow us to leverage state-of-the-art platforms to detect, diagnose and deliver therapeutics, keeping patient care at the center of our mission.”

The Brockman Centennial Tower is expected to open next year in the Texas Medical Center. Spanning more than 1 million square feet, it will house 400 patient beds, an expanded emergency department, new operating rooms and a rooftop garden. It will be connected to Houston Methodist's flagship Paula and Joseph C. “Rusty” Walter III Tower, which opened in 2018. The Centennial Tower was estimated to cost $1.4 billion when announced in 2022.

In addition to the news of the Brockman gift, Houston Methodist also announced this month that it has launched the Houston Methodist Center for Cell and Gene Therapy and tapped an internationally recognized scientist as its leader.

The new center is focused on discovering and developing innovative and cost-effective therapies for a variety of congenital and acquired diseases, including cancer, HIV and cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Malcolm Brenner has been named as the center's inaugural leader and will assume the role starting in October. He will work alongside scientists and support staff from Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital.

Brenner is a professor of pediatrics, medicine, molecular and human genetics and translational biology at Baylor College of Medicine. He is known for making early advances in using bone marrow transplantation as a form of cell therapy and in engineered immune-cell treatments for cancer and infections, according to a release from Houston Methodist.

“Malcolm Brenner is a pioneer in the field of cell and gene therapy and is uniquely qualified to lead Houston Methodist’s research efforts in this field,” Chang added. “His vision and leadership will play a pivotal role in advancing our work in this space.”

View All Listings