By Sara Gilgore

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D.C.’s Halcyon incubator program has teamed up with a sizable health player to put more money toward health innovation startups.

Halcyon has signed up Owings Mills, Maryland-based CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield to back some of the health care startups coming through its Georgetown incubator. CareFirst’s corporate investment arm, Healthworx, will devote a total $200,000 to ensure one of eight slots in each of Halcyon’s next four incubator cohorts will be a health care initiative — one specifically focused on improving health outcomes, increasing access to services and cutting costs for patients, said Healthworx Senior Director Ricardo Johnson.

“The data that CareFirst has, and can bring to the table, to really understand not only the efficacy of your product, but how that product should be priced and should be reimbursed,” Johnson said, “that’s where we want to bring the expertise to really help these things accelerate once they do launch into the commercial market.”

Healthworx is particularly interested in companies focused on behavioral health and substance abuse, the pharmacy cost curve, consumerism of health care and social determinants of health — which include social and economic factors like access to groceries and transportation, Johnson said.

It’s part of CareFirst’s push into Greater Washington to innovate, but “not just inventing things ourselves and going at it alone,” Johnson said. To that end, it’s looking to partner with other local organizations, to start health-focused coworking spaces, invest in local health tech or services players and work with providers to support vulnerable populations like Medicare and Medicaid patients, he said. “There is a lot of talent in D.C. that I’d like to access from an innovation perspective in health care to really put that to work.”

Halcyon has no shortage of health care startups coming through its 18-month residency program. That’s what led Halcyon’s team to pursue a more structured partnership to better support them, said Chief Innovation Officer Ryan Ross. “So that’s the impetus — health care was something we had our eyes on.”

Each cohort will have one Healthworx fellow, selected by a committee that includes Johnson. Those recipients will receive more industry-specific advice and mentorship, though it won’t preclude other health care startups from participating in Halcyon’s program. And Healthworx’s financial investment, Ross said, will enable Halcyon to create new programs for those entrepreneurs.

“The health care system is just such a large, tangled and bureaucratic system, which for some people is a huge barrier to entry and a challenge,” he said. “But when you’re able to partner with someone like Healthworx, it actually can become a competitive advantage if you have the partners to navigate it appropriately.”

In all, Halcyon has graduated 10 cohorts of fellows, now amid its eleventh. The next cohort, which saw hundreds of applications, will be announced in December or January and begin in February of next year. Since the incubator started in 2014, its alumni have raised more than $100 million in investments and created more than 1,000 jobs, according to Halcyon’s count.

Halcyon is also building an angel investor group, expecting to bring on the person who will run it in a couple more weeks, Ross said. Backed by a $300,000 federal grant, that effort is slated to get off the ground in early 2020. Halcyon is also raising a separate $6 million fund to invest in its fellows and their startups.