GE, VC firms launch innovation challenge to fight cancer

By Michelle Lang

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GE and venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Venrock, Mohr Davidow and MPM Capital have launched a $100 million healthymagination open innovation challenge aimed at funding promising initiatives that may improve breast cancer diagnostics.

The initiative is expected to support progress in understanding the more aggressive triple negative cancer, improving early detection and enabling better treatment for cancer patients, according to a news release today.

Winners of the innovation challenge, to be announced in early 2012, will receive $100,000 seed grants. Representatives from GE, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Venrock, Mohr Davidow and MPM Capital will initially evaluate the innovation challenge applications, and a separate, independent panels of judges will choose the winners.

In its news release, GE also said that it would spend $1 billion in the next five years to grow its cancer detection and treatment research and development, with its initial focus on breast cancer.

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