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HEALTH EQUITY INNOVATION FUND LEARNINGS & IMPACT

Through the Genentech Innovation Fund, we invest in bold ideas that break down barriers to equitable care and patient outcomes. Since launching the Innovation Fund in 2019, Genentech has invested $50M in groundbreaking innovation, catalyzing over 100+ healthcare organizations and leaders unified by a vision to address today’s most urgent health challenges.

2024 Health Equity Innovation Fund Grantees

Click the tiles below to learn more about the impact of our Innovation Fund partners

  • PATIENT POWER

    Patient power: Grow patient power to access, navigate, and influence care.

    Navigating a medical diagnosis can be immensely difficult -- and doing so while facing challenges like housing instability or lack of insurance often leads patients to fall out of care entirely. Every part of the healthcare system has a role to play to ensure that we’re helping patients stay in the continuum of care and feel supported throughout their journeys. Parkland Health Foundation, an Innovation Fund grantee from Texas, uses AI and machine learning to help predict barriers to breast cancer treatment faced by the most vulnerable communities. They then proactively support individuals to schedule appointments, adhere to treatments, and understand their health risks.

  • HEALTHCARE ACCOUNTABILITY

    Healthcare accountability: Knock down barriers to equitable care and strengthen healthcare quality.

    Regardless of geography, background or socio-economic status, everyone deserves access to high-quality healthcare. This starts with understanding that every patient and every community faces unique challenges that require personalized approaches to healthcare delivery. In California, Aliados Health, a 2024 Innovation Fund grantee, drives accountability by bringing mobile health services like breast and cervical cancer screenings directly to community centers. Another grantee, the Forge Breast Cancer Center in Alabama, provides wraparound support like nutrition guidance, transportation and mental health counseling to help address the full spectrum of patient needs.

  • INCLUSIVE WORKFORCE

    Inclusive workforce: Build a diverse and inclusive healthcare workforce.

    We are passionate about helping to build a scientific and medical workforce that reflects the diversity of the patients it serves. Research has shown that experiences and outcomes for patients of color improve when they have a diverse and representative care team, but due largely to structural barriers and long-standing racial inequities that make it difficult for people from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue STEM degrees, the healthcare workforce is overwhelmingly white. Several of this year’s grantees are tackling this challenge head-on – organizations like the Instituto del Progreso Latino and the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science are equipping underrepresented students with training and resources to become healthcare leaders.

A majority of our Innovation Fund Grantees said that, as a result of Genentech’s support, they’re able to execute transformative work that drives progress toward health equity and elevates them within their fields of study. In addition:

Innovation Fund teams are focused on both driving and scaling their impact. Some of the critical lessons learned from this groundbreaking work include:

Long-term, transformative progress requires investments that target individual, institutional and systems-level change

Community engagement and co-creation with patients, students and caregivers has an outsized impact on addressing healthcare disparities, but remains massively under-resourced

Effective community engagement requires trust, time, flexibility, partners skilled in listening and sustained investment beyond the project scope

Shifting Power To Patients And Unlocking Innovation In Healthcare Delivery

Building A Clinical Trial Movement For Black Women, By Black Women

TOUCH, The Black Breast Cancer Alliance launched the groundbreaking When We Tri(al) initiative, which is activating a joyful, energized community to overcome Black women’s justifiable mistrust of clinical research.

Changemaker Reflections: Hear More From Touch Co-founder & CEO Ricki Fairley
Advancing Health Equity Through Empathy And Experiential Learning

Equify Health is disrupting how medical providers deliver care using transformative approaches centered on the humanity of patients as people, as opposed to their diagnoses.

Changemaker Reflections: Hear More From Equify Founder & CEO Sylvie Leotin
Redesigning Inclusive Research With Community Partners

Henry Ford Health (HFH) launched the Participatory Action for Access to Clinical Trials (PAACT) project to increase Black/African American clinical trial participation by partnering with community groups.

Changemaker Reflections: Hear More From Paact Principal Investigator Dr. Evelyn Jiagge

News & Stories

See recent news coverage of our Innovation Fund grantees and explore other stories about Genentech’s work to improve health equity.

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