Nutrition start-up joins WVU Health Sciences Innovation Center
West Virginia University has added a third scientific tenant in the Health Sciences Innovation Center.
The new venture, Good Measures, LLC, is a Boston-based firm that is pioneering a data-driven approach to personal nutrition. Co-founder George Bennett, a WVU industrial engineering graduate, is a highly successful business leader who founded or co-founded several successful corporations.
“Good Measures simplifies healthy eating by providing registered dietitian nutrition coaching by phone, email, text, secure video, and in person – daytimes, evenings, or weekends – when it’s most convenient,” said its chief operating officer, Patrick Flynn. “Our nutrition coaches get to know participants and help them stay on track and make healthy changes.”
“WVU is committed to innovation, and one of the ways we can nurture that is to provide a home on campus for external organizations that would like to develop or test inventions, products or services in an academic environment,” said Clay B. Marsh, M.D., vice president and executive dean for health sciences. “It benefits our students and our faculty to have these entrepreneurs among us – they bring us new ideas, energy, and a connection to the larger world.”
The Good Measures app and website deliver personalized meal and snack recommendations plus feedback on how well each participant is meeting his or her nutrition needs, based on individual characteristics. Good Measures helps people eat healthier, lose weight, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, feel more energetic, reduce their health risks, and better manage health conditions through nutrition. The firm provides the Good Measures Diabetes Prevention Program as well as an American Diabetes Association-recognized diabetes self-management education program.
“We’re delighted to be working with West Virginia University scientists and health professionals and to be a part of the Health Science Innovation Center” said Flynn. “Good Measures’ innovation lies in its anywhere, anytime nutrition counseling which combines clinical and behavior change expertise with digital technology to improve health outcomes. Our personalized counseling services focus on people with nutrition-sensitive medical conditions including pre-diabetes and diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. We look forward to expanding our activities with WVU.”
The company is already involved in research at WVU, partnering with theWest Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute to test their approach in several rural counties.
Two full-time dieticians will staff the Morgantown office, and they will work with area physicians and health professionals to offer the service to patients.
Good Measures joins two existing organizations, CereDx and Modulation Therapeutics, in the WVU Health Sciences Innovation Center. The facility, located within the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Center, provides space and infrastructure for emerging life science start-ups.
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