News Release

From MBS Capstone Porject to Acquisition: A Rady Health-Tech Startup Success Story

San Diego, CA, January 11, 2016 -- After completing medical school, Brad Pruitt (MBA ’11) became involved in the clinical trial world and sought an MBA at the Rady School to advance his career on the business side of medicine. Through the Rady School’s Lab to Market capstone course, Pruitt built the foundation for nPruv, which at the time was called iConsent Medical. The premise focused on developing a tablet-based smart informed consent solution that could be used for healthcare procedures and clinical trial enrollment. Pruitt competed in the 2011 UCSD-wide Entrepreneur Challenge business plan competition, taking first place in the both the quick pitch contest and the high-tech healthcare track, winning cash and legal services that helped get nPruv started.

Additionally, the Rady School’s available network of entrepreneurial and business professionals assisted Pruitt through conversations about funding and further developing nPruv. “At Rady, when you need something you know you have access to it,” said Pruitt. “It’s just one introduction away. That’s network power, and that’s huge for a startup.”

After meeting with his newly formed team and advisors post Rady graduation, Pruitt decided to shift the focus of his startup from informed consent to address the pain point of recruiting quality patients for clinical trials. nPruv pivoted to become  the “match.com for clinical trials”, matching patients and doctors with available clinical trial opportunities. Moving forward in this new direction, nPruv was accepted into CONNECT’s Springboard startup accelerator program followed by acceptance into Southern California’s premier technology incubator, EvoNexus.  In 2014 nPruv won first place in the EvoNexus Demo Day and the San Diego Tech Coast Angels Quick Pitch pitch competitions.

By the end of 2014 nPruv had commanded interest from the industry and conversations commenced with investors and potential acquirers. It soon became clear that the technology nPruv developed for recruiting clinical trial patients would be a complementary value add for Parallel 6’s mClinical platform for patient enrollment, engagement and management. In September of this year, Pruitt formally accepted the role of Chief Medical Officer at Parallel 6. On January 7th, Parallel 6 announced its acquisition of nPruv, adding to the growing number of acquisitions of Rady founded startups. "My enthusiasm to join Parallel 6 is rooted in the opportunity to enhance the Clinical Reach platform,” said Pruitt. “Clinical Reach is advancing the life sciences industry by providing a platform to enroll, engage and manage patients in real-time for clinical trials. As a contributor to the Parallel 6 leadership team, my goal is to progress our innovative technology and bring new and potentially lifesaving treatments to market faster."

Pruitt’s advice for other Rady entrepreneurs? Stay focused and keep skating to where the puck is going to be. “It’s all about forward momentum – you either need people to come into your company that believe in your vision and mission that will work and take it to the next level or you need people who will put their money in the company that will help take it to the next level,” said Pruitt.

See Parallel 6’s press release here.

Media Contacts

Daniel Kane
Jacobs School of Engineering
858-534-3262
dbkane@ucsd.edu

Melinda Battenberg
Rady School of Management
858-534-0885
mbattenberg@ucsd.edu