By Mike Cronin – Staff Writer, Austin Business Journal
Jul 28, 2020, 2:36pm CDT
Updated Jul 28, 2020, 2:46pm CDT
Several academic, public-sector and private-sector organizations in Austin and beyond have banded together to fight the current Covid-19 pandemic — and future pandemics.
The Texas Global Health Security Innovation Consortium boasts more than 50 initial members, including the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, Dell Medical School, Capital City Innovation, DivInc, the Harte Research Institute, Tech Ranch Austin and the Texas Advanced Computing Center. The Austin Technology Incubator, part of the the University of Texas at Austin, organized the consortium.
The consortium, called TEXGHS for short, seeks to cultivate global health security, which it defines as “a state of freedom from the scourge of infectious disease, irrespective of origin or source.”
It “is compiling a database of companies, researchers, and individuals interested in developing their innovative approaches to achieving health security,” according to its website, and aims to be a resource to develop new technologies and adapt existing technologies to fight pandemics.
More member organizations are wanted and TEXGHS is looking for “startup companies interested in receiving support to commercialize solutions at the interface of health security and technology,” according to an announcement.
PandemicTech, an Austin-based organization that serves as a global incubator of ideas to fight infectious diseases, provided $20,000 in seed funding to ATI to start TEXGHS.
The consortium is headed up by Lisa McDonald, director of health care at ATI and a co-founder of PandemicTech.
