One Brave Idea

What One Brave Idea does

One Brave Idea is a $75 million research initiative co-founded in January 2016 by the American Heart Association and Verily Life Sciences (an Alphabet subsidiary), with equal $25 million funding from AstraZeneca and later pillar support from Quest Diagnostics. The initiative is led by Dr. Calum MacRae, Vice Chair for Scientific Innovation and Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and is operationally headquartered at the One Brave Idea Science Innovation Center, 360 Longwood Avenue, Boston. Its mission is to pursue unconventional scientific approaches to coronary heart disease (CHD), the leading cause of death globally that kills approximately 17.8 million people annually, with the goal of detecting individuals at risk decades before clinical symptoms manifest.

The initiative's core technical bet is a "deep phenotyping" methodology that integrates measurements across biological scales — from molecules to cells to holistic physiology and behavior — including digital phenotypes captured through wearable sensors, and that combines these with genetic, molecular, and patient-reported data. Six structured research approaches underpin the program: Deep Phenotyping, Early Detection, Genomics + Phenotyping in Clinical Care, Engaging Broad Patient Populations in Research, Integrative Computational Research, and Promoting Non-Traditional Partnerships. A multi-disciplinary investigator team spans Brigham and Women's Hospital, MIT, Stanford, Northwestern, Harvard Medical School, and the Million Veteran Program, with access to longitudinal datasets including the Framingham Heart Study.

One Brave Idea is not a commercial entity and does not generate revenue from product sales. Its funding is structured as grants rather than equity investment. Auxiliary programs include the iD2D (Innovating from Discovery to Delivery) cross-disciplinary training program, the Mower Fellowship for early-career cardiovascular and digital health researchers, and the monthly Phenotype Phorum event series convening academia and industry. Go-to-market is therefore academic and partnership-driven rather than commercial: outputs are disseminated through publications, collaborations with partner institutions, training cohorts, and the Phenotype Phorum community.

Name

One Brave Idea

Legal name

One Brave Idea

Website

https://onebraveidea.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2016

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

One Brave Idea is a $75 million grant-funded research initiative using deep phenotyping — multi-scale biological and wearable-sensor data — to detect coronary heart disease 10–20 years before symptoms, primarily serving high-risk patients via academic and industry partners.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Cardiovascular Research Services

NAICS

Scientific Research and Development Services (5417), Voluntary Health Organizations (813212), Research and Development in Biotechnology (except Nanobiotechnology) (541714)

SIC

Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731)

akta.pro primary industry

Health & Medical Research Grantmaking Foundations (BPAGAKAL)

akta.pro secondary industries

Healthcare Outcomes & Real-World Evidence (RWE) Analytics (BPAHALAN), Real-World Data (RWD) / Real-World Evidence (RWE) & Observational Research Platforms (HLACAOAM), Research & Science Grantmaking Foundations (BPAGAKAI)

Keywords

• Cardiovascular research
• Deep phenotyping
• Coronary heart disease
• Digital biomarkers
• Genomic medicine

Headquarters

HQ city

Boston

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

One Brave Idea is a nonprofit research initiative that conducts multi-disciplinary cardiovascular research aimed at detecting coronary heart disease 10–20 years before symptoms appear. It pursues this through six integrated research approaches (Deep Phenotyping, Early Detection, Genomics + Phenotyping in Clinical Care, Engaging Broad Patient Populations in Research, Integrative Computational Research, and Non-Traditional Partnerships), complemented by training programs (iD2D), a fellowship (Mower Fellowship), and the Phenotype Phorum event series.

Product overview

One Brave Idea is a $75 million research initiative co-founded by the American Heart Association and Verily, with significant support from AstraZeneca and pillar support from Quest Diagnostics. The initiative pursues unconventional scientific approaches to make major advances in the fight against coronary heart disease. Rather than a product company, it operates as a research enterprise comprising multiple integrated research approaches (Deep Phenotyping, Early Detection, Genomics + Phenotyping, Engaging Patient Populations, Integrative Computational Research, and Non-Traditional Partnerships) supported by educational programs including the iD2D training program and Mower Fellowship, along with the Phenotype Phorum event series.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Innovating from Discovery to Delivery (iD2D): A training program designed to enhance the capabilities of biomedical professionals to provide data-driven solutions for tomorrow's patients through collaborative, cross-disciplinary problem-solving.
• Mower Fellowship

Products and services

• iD2D (Innovating from Discovery to Delivery) A cross-disciplinary training program spanning the 2020-2021 academic year (~35 hours) designed to enhance biomedical professionals' capabilities in delivering data-driven solutions for tomorrow's patients through collaborative, cross-disciplinary problem-solving from discovery research to healthcare systems. Targeted at post-graduate physicians, scientists, engineers, data scientists, and entrepreneurs.
• Mower Fellowship A fellowship opportunity for applicants from various scientific backgrounds — including post-graduate physicians interested in technologic or digital innovations, scientists with technology expertise, data scientists, and entrepreneurs — to develop new models for academia-industry partnerships in cardiovascular research.
• Phenotype Phorum A monthly event series convening individuals from academia and industry interested in cutting-edge applications of phenotyping across wellness and different diseases, serving as a community-building and knowledge-exchange platform.

Quantifiable outcome

• Creating a coronary heart disease early warning system by examining what happens 10-20 years before risk factors typically appear
• +2 more outcomes

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Ten partnerships are on record, tiered core and supporting.

• Quest DiagnosticscoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 11 November 2018Pillar supporter contributing biomarker implementation, population health analytics, and national lab platform. Brings Cleveland HeartLab for early-stage genetic and biological markers, rich longitudinal laboratory data on millions of patients, and connectivity to about half the physicians in the United States.
• Brigham and Women's HospitalcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 3 October 2017Home institution of Dr. Calum MacRae and the Cardiovascular Medicine Innovation team. Provides clinical device expertise through the Next Generation Phenotyping Center and access to hospitals and clinics for real-world implementation.
• American Heart AssociationcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 5 October 2016Co-founder of One Brave Idea. Provided $25 million in funding (the largest single research investment in AHA's 92-year history). Contributes medical and scientific prowess, patient-centered research networks, and scientific networks to the initiative.
• Verily Life SciencescoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 5 October 2016Co-founder of One Brave Idea (formerly Google Life Sciences, an Alphabet company). Provided $25 million in funding and contributes technical expertise in device engineering, data analytics, and software development for clinical applications.
• AstraZenecacoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 5 October 2016Major funding partner contributing $25 million. Provides scientific insights, proprietary data, and mentoring to support the One Brave Idea research initiative.
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)supportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerProvides engineering expertise to support the One Brave Idea research initiatives and the Science Innovation Center operations.
• Stanford UniversitysupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerContributes genomics expertise and research capabilities to the One Brave Idea initiative.
• Northwestern UniversitysupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner institution contributing to the diverse team of experts including engineering and data sciences.
• Million Veteran ProgramsupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerFederal program providing access to veterans' blood and health information for anonymous research studies, enabling large-scale genetic and health data analysis.
• Framingham Heart StudysupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerNation's longest-running heart study (launched in 1948) that follows cardiovascular development across three generations of participants, providing invaluable longitudinal research data.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves13 records

Expansion highlights10 records

Direct peers

• Verily Life Sciences: Alphabet-owned life sciences company and One Brave Idea co-founder that contributed $25M and provides device engineering, data analytics, and software expertise. Verily operates directly in the same digital health + phenotyping + wearable sensor space, making it the most directly comparable peer.
• Human Longevity Inc. Health intelligence company founded by Craig Venter that uses whole-genome sequencing, deep phenotyping, and ML to predict and prevent disease. Closely aligned with OBI's genomic-plus-phenotype approach to early disease detection, though applied more broadly across conditions rather than CHD-specific.

Broad incumbents

• American Heart Association: Parent organization and co-founder of One Brave Idea; the largest US nonprofit funder of cardiovascular research. Operates as a much broader health-advocacy and grantmaking institution, of which OBI is a flagship program. Direct functional overlap on cardiovascular research funding and patient networks.
• AstraZeneca: One Brave Idea co-funder ($25M) and a global pharmaceutical company with a substantial cardiovascular therapeutic pipeline. Comparable because it both funds external CHD research and operates the downstream drug-development pathway that any OBI discovery could feed into.
• Broad Institute: MIT/Harvard research institute operating a similar large-scale, multi-institution, multi-disciplinary model integrating genomics, computation, and clinical translation. While disease-agnostic, its operating model — shared infrastructure, multi-PI consortia, public-private funding — closely mirrors OBI's structure.
• Allen Institute: Large-scale, well-funded research organization pursuing ambitious long-horizon scientific programs with multi-disciplinary teams. Operates under a comparable model of concentrated capital, dedicated facilities, and unconventional approach to long-standing scientific problems, though focused on brain science and cell science rather than cardiology.
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute: Largest US biomedical research philanthropy, supporting investigator-driven science across many institutions. Comparable as a parallel model of long-horizon, well-capitalized, investigator-led biomedical research not tied to a single commercial product, though HHMI operates at vastly greater scale and across all of biomedicine.

Emerging players

• Chan Zuckerberg Biohub: Philanthropically funded biomedical research organization uniting UCSF, Stanford, and Berkeley investigators around large-scale disease science. Comparable as a cross-institution research initiative with significant philanthropic backing and an explicit translational mission, though operating at an earlier-stage scale and disease-agnostic scope.

Others

• Quest Diagnostics: Pillar supporter of One Brave Idea and one of the largest clinical laboratory networks in the US, providing longitudinal lab data on millions of patients and physician reach to ~half of US providers. Functions as an enabling ecosystem partner rather than direct competitor, providing real-world clinical data infrastructure for OBI's research.
• Wellcome Trust: Large UK-based charitable foundation funding biomedical and health research at global scale. Comparable as a parallel philanthropic funder of long-horizon, high-risk health research, though broader in scope and with no direct operational overlap on cardiovascular phenotyping.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/onebraveidea
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/one-brave-idea

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments1 record

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Frequently asked questions about One Brave Idea