Nevins to exit from MedMates
After a brief five-month stint as executive director, Kelly Nevins will be leaving to take the helm at the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island
PROVIDENCE – Kelly Nevins, who was hired in June as executive director of MedMates, will be leaving after five months on the job to become executive director at the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island.
The move has not yet been publicly announced, although Nevins’ departure is known to a number of key players.
However, the impending change was unofficially announced when the executive director position was posted on Friday afternoon, Oct. 14, on the RICOMJOB site hosted by Brown University.
A new strategic plan has been completed under the aegis of Nevins.
In addition, the mission and goals of the group have been further honed, judging from the description in the job posting:
MedMates is Rhode Island's first medical technology network group formed to galvanize collaboration between life science companies, hospitals, universities, researchers, sources of capital, and governmental partners.
Founded in 2013 as a 501(c)(6) organization, MedMates members come from startups to mature enterprises and everything in between. Our mission is “To Grow the Life Sciences Economy in RI.”
The history of MedMates has been a struggle to define its mission, its audience and its messaging. [See link to ConvergenceRI story below.]
The latest incarnation, dubbed MedMates 3.0 by some, had been introduced at an event on Feb. 17 at the Social Enterprise Greenhouse, spurred in large part by a three-year, $525,000 grant from the R.I. Department of Labor and Training under its Real Jobs RI initiative. As ConvergenceRI reported at the time:
The genesis of the latest version of MedMates has its roots in the successful award of $175,000 a year for three years under the R.I. Department of Labor and Training’s Real Jobs RI program.
DLT Director Scott Jensen described the funding award to the crowd of about 50 people attending as a grant to increase “incumbent worker training for job creation,” in what he termed the made-up language of “development-ese.”
Translated, under the umbrella of the Social Enterprise Greenhouse, MedMates will now refocus its energy on serving as an accelerator for new companies in the medical device sector in Rhode Island – to train people to become better entrepreneurs, according to Jensen, and in the process, spur job creation.
In turn, MedMates is looking to hire a new executive director, with new resources provided by the Rhode Island Foundation, according to board member David Goldsmith, managing director of Aspiera Medical, who also spoke at the event. Goldsmith said that there was already one very strong potential candidate in the mix. [That candidate turned out to be Nevins.]
Busy being born
The news of Nevin’s departure comes at a time when MedMates has been very busy in its outreach efforts to strengthen the organization and redefine its agenda:
• On Oct. 14, MedMates announced the appointment of Dr. Barrett Bready, founder and CEO of Nabsys; Dr. Michael Katz, associate vice president, intellectual property and economic development at the University of Rhode Island; and Aidan Petrie, chief innovation officer and co-founder of Ximedica, to its board of directors.
• On Oct. 14-16, MedMates partnered with the University of Rhode Island, Wearable Biosensing Lab and the Social Enterprise Greenhouse to launch the first annual Health Hacks RI, a 48-hour, hands-on hack-a-thon, or makersfest/designfest, in which college students focus on developing solutions to issues in medical technology, aging and food/nutrition.
• On Oct. 12, MedMates hosted a monthly networking night with the Social Enterprise Greenhouse to mingle with those innovating and working in the health and wellness fields, with presentations by Organic Conceptions and Boston Thermography Center.
And, its future events include:
• On Oct. 18, MedMates will be hosting its MedMates after hours programming at the Flatbread Company on Cushing Street in Providence, featuring Molecular MS Diagnostics President, Daniel Magiera, as he discusses how to bring drug conception to FDA approval.
• On Nov. 16, MedMates will host a session called MedTech: Lessons from the Real World, featuring Dr. Samuel Dudley, founder of 3PrimeDx; Robert Rabiner, founder of IlluminOss Medical; and Eamonn Hobbs, president of Hobbs Medical Ventures.
Many rivers to cross
Like many startups that are competing to survive and thrive within Rhode Island’s innovation ecosystem, MedMates has had to continually attempt to reinvent itself within the constraints of limited funding resources and lack of definition in terms of how it behaves as an industry cluster group.
The changing focus of its mission from medtech to growing the life sciences economy, as well as its collaboration with the Social Enterprise Greenhouse, may provide it with a more broad-based appeal in terms of its efforts around workforce development and accelerating local startup firms.
What is still missing is a consensus about what an industry cluster is and how it should organize itself. The role of the R.I. Department of Labor and Training as its major funding source belies an inherent conflict: what is the role of the Raimondo administration in this process? Is it to promote Raimondo’s team agenda? Or, is it to building a collaborative relationship between competitors to provide a strategic edge?
Stay tuned. The new executive director will no doubt need to launch the next version, MedMates 4.0.