JOHNSON CITY, Tenn., April 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A new venture between Ballad Health and the East Tennessee State University Research Corporation is expected to bolster regional efforts to enhance economic growth in the Appalachian Highlands, while also creating a national portal for rural health innovation.

The new Appalachian Highlands Rural Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance will coordinate multiple local and national areas of research and idea development, particularly impacting the delivery of healthcare, through surveilling efforts, accelerating early-stage development, translating research into business opportunities and identifying scalable opportunities for investment, ultimately reshaping the overall economy, health and well-being of the region.

“We are bringing together the expertise, energy and know-how of the Appalachian Highlands together with a shared vision and vision around innovation and entrepreneurship,” said David Golden, the CEO of the ETSU Research Corporation and Allen and Ruth Harris Chair of Excellence in the East Tennessee State University College of Business and Technology. “Aligning existing efforts like the STRIVE program and Rugged Buc Lab with the Ballad Health Innovation Center and the ETSU Research Corporation allows us to leverage the strengths the region provides.”
“When we created Ballad Health, we made a commitment that this new organization would leverage the regional strength of the Appalachian Highlands, reaching across all our communities in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia to enhance opportunities to turn good ideas into thriving businesses and economic opportunity,” said Ballad Health Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Alan Levine. “This center will not only leverage good local ideas into business opportunities for the region, but it will attract ideas from all over the world, which will support the enhancement of healthcare delivery and innovation, while also creating an ecosystem for those transformative ideas to grow and be put into practice all over the world.”

“Idea development and translation to business is important, but not entirely possible without capital,” Levine added. “So as a part of this announcement, we are also creating a regional investment fund, seeded with $1 million from Ballad Health specifically for rural health, which will be open to other investors and entrepreneurs interested in innovation within the Appalachian Highlands. As the Alliance grows, we expect other investors and organizations will look to grow additional capabilities in diverse areas such as digital media, biopharma and data analytics."

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