How SMILE Health Is Reimagining Oral Health Innovation

What adjectives would you use to describe the oral health system? Traditional? Effective? Reliable?

One adjective that often gets left out of the conversation: innovative.

“There is a lack of innovation in oral health in a couple of ways,” says Kirill Zaydenman, MS, vice president of innovation at our for-profit subsidiary CareQuest Innovation Partners. “One is that dentistry has not kept pace with change in other industries that have been undergoing digital transformation. The other is within public health — it’s a hugely underserved market.”

SMILE Health is trying to change all of that. The acronym, SMILE, which stands for Simple, Minimally Invasive, Integrated, Low-Barrier, and Equitable Health, serves as the foundation for the accelerator created by CareQuest Innovation Partners and MATTER, the premier health care incubator and innovation hub. Launched in early March, SMILE Health sought novel solutions to make oral health more accessible, equitable, and integrated.

So far, the results have been overwhelmingly positive.

“The market receptivity metrics were double what we had expected at the top end of our range, given analogous programs in other industries,” Zaydenman said.

In six weeks, from March 9 to April 22, SMILE Health received more than 100 applications from start-up companies spanning 11 countries and 28 US states. Of those 101 applications, 80% have female founders and 80% have diverse leadership. During the next 12 weeks, the finalists will participate in an intensive 12-week process culminating with a Demo Day for potential investors and customers during the week of September 12.

As the first cohort begins its journey, Zaydenman and Mariya Filipova, MBA, chief innovation officer at CareQuest Innovation Partners, provided some insight into the origins of the program, the goals they are working toward, and the road ahead for the finalists.

Can you share the origins of SMILE Health? What gaps is it trying to fill in the industry?

Mariya: First, there was a gap in funding early-stage start-ups. Funding tripled in digital health during the pandemic, but the vast majority, 60%, went to more mature companies, not early-stage companies. The second gap is around innovating for underserved communities and the public health audience, not just commercial markets. And the third piece is really that notion that oral health could be part of overall health, that solutions can purposefully bridge the gap between those two artificially created silos in the way we deliver care and think about health overall.

Are there other programs like this in the oral health space? What makes this one different?

Mariya: There are two pieces that are unique to this program. Number one, it’s about the gaps that it serves. CareQuest Innovation Partners, along with CareQuest Institute [its nonprofit parent organization], is uniquely positioned to identify those gaps and find solutions that are real, rather than shiny new toys. That’s the first big differentiator. The second one is truly the design of the program. We have evolved the traditional incubator model. What makes SMILE so different is the fact that there is a curated set of what we call impact partners — companies that become accelerators to scale and possible customers for all these solutions. We’re calling them impact partners because, over the course of the program, they validate the potential for that solution to have a meaningful impact and, at the end of the program, have the option to deploy the solution in their own organization with their patients, customers, or employees.

CareQuest Innovation Partners is fortunate to have leaders who have experience with accelerator programs like this. From what you’ve seen, is funding the limiting factor for most of these start-ups?

Mariya: What we have found out from our experience in these industries is funding is never the rate-limiting factor to scale. It’s access to customers. And that’s what we have designed SMILE Health around. That’s the one barrier that very few organizations in the industry can remove. And with the very thoughtful, deliberate design of SMILE, we’ve been able to provide access to insights, business case development, and workflow implications that make it easy for customers to adopt the innovative solution and do that sustainably at scale.

Let’s turn to the potential solutions. What has the response from innovators in the field been like so far?

Kirill: Qualitatively, what we’re hearing from people are things like, “This is exactly what’s needed to move the industry forward.” In terms of the numbers, we exceeded our expectations. Based on similar programs that MATTER has run across diabetes, women’s care, pulmonary fibrosis, and other similar type programs, they had told us to expect about 30 to 50 applications. We ended up doubling that.

So, you’re clearly seeing a need in the marketplace. What else are you trying to learn in this first year?

Kirill: We’re really trying to understand three things: Market receptivity and readiness:

• Does the market need this?
• Measures of impact: Are these start-ups getting access to capital and customers?
• Capability fit: How can we execute a program like this? Can we do it seamlessly? Can we operationalize it?

On that first measure of market interest, I think it’s been quite tremendous to date. Those other two things, impact and execution, we continue to track, but market interest seems to be there, so we’re cautiously optimistic.

Which start-ups made it to the final round?

Kirill: Here are some of the sample solutions the cohort companies are innovating around:

• There is a company that is innovating around at-home saliva screening to diagnose oral cancer a lot earlier.
• There’s a company that is democratizing access to sleep apnea diagnosis and treatment through dental offices.
• There’s a company that is innovating around how to make hall crowns, which are a noninvasive technique (and a more equitable way) for kids to get crowns.
• There's a company that is leveraging the power of AI and machine learning technology to enable precision and customized patient care. 
• The last company is using virtual reality during certain types of surgeries to reduce the use of sedation and anesthesia.

The most important thing was to make sure that the companies aligned with one of our three tracks of making oral health more accessible, more equitable, and more integrated. We were also assessing the quality, feasibility, and business viability perspectives. And we were looking to see if they were differentiated from other solutions in the market. We were making sure that we thought that the team could ultimately develop and execute the solution.

What is the cohort experience going to be like? What’s on deck for the next 12 weeks?

Kirill: The next 12 weeks are about three things:

1. One-on-one time spent with high-profile mentors that have specific expertise to guide the start-ups through the key questions and key needs that they’re working on.
2. Virtual weekly instructional sessions and discussions with experts in topics of interest for these start-ups. This could be around dental reimbursement, workflow, oral health equity, and oral health access. This could be around design thinking. And they’ll be preparing for pitch day.
3. Validation study development, the hands-on work with the matched impact partner to the start-up. This is where they directly work with that partner to validate market readiness of an aspect of their solution.

Lastly, how can interested individuals get involved in SMILE Health?

Mariya: We’re always seeking collaborators across the oral health community — and beyond. SMILE Health provides an opportunity to work with oral health visionaries and be a part of systemic change across the industry. To that end, we invite oral health experts, researchers, payors, providers, investors, community leaders, advocacy group members, and representatives from pharma/biotech/device corporations and health systems to connect with us.