The Health Care Entrepreneurship Program (HCEP) is a business development group that was established at Boston University in 1996. HCEP's mission is to initiate and support entrepreneurial business development in health care, focusing on the incubation and start-up phase. Market areas that HCEP focuses on include information services, health services, medical devices, and other types of health care technology (excluding biotech).

HCEP's mission builds on the successful model of health care innovation created by the Health Policy Institute at Boston University. Founded by Dr. Richard Egdahl in 1975, the Institute led the industry in developing solutions for managing health care costs and quality. This work influenced corporate and government policy development and led to the founding of several information management companies (Start-up Experience).

The Health Policy Institute today consists of the Health Care Entrepreneurship Program and several affiliated health care research and policy programs. HCEP staff work with these programs to help them expand and, where appropriate, pursue opportunities for business development. In addition to HCEP, the Policy Institute prgrams include the Scholars in Health Policy Research Program, the Health Policy Research Program, the Management of Variability in Health Care Delivery Program, and the Center for Educational Development in Health.

HCEP staff have experience in medicine, early stage business development, and health care management (People). In advising start-up companies, HCEP also draws on University experts and its broad network of outside advisors and contacts. Boston University's initiatives devoted to entrepreneurial business development include the Office of Technology Development (venture capital and technology transfer), several business incubators (Photonics Center, BioSquare), the Fraunhofer USA Center, and the Entrepreneurial Management Institute (EMI) at the School of Management.

Entrepreneurship endeavors, our primary mission, fuel a second major activity at HCEP: mentoring "physician entrepreneurs" as a source of new talent for start-up businesses and venture capital firms.

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