This story is still under development
This is a story of perseverance, grit and innovation. An overnight success that was built over decades. Come and discover our journey. See how a vision is built one little story at a time.
Our stories are our memories and probably of most value to us. However, it is our hope that this compilation will bring some inspiration and hope to others; may be, and just may be, give the little strength required to someone who is also building a vision bigger than their life brought to them.
2000-2002: THE BEGINNING
Kashbon Group's commitment to health and wellness begins in 2000 when Medhospital was conceptualized. In 2001, Medhospital was formed as a task force to address a gap between the available medical help and the help reaching the people.
Very soon however, it was clear that the problem is much larger than initially conceptualized. The majority of the reasons for untimely and inadequate medical action taken are due to the fears associated with the complexity of medical information available on the internet. To address a problem of such magnitude, and create any real impact, a more structured approach was needed.
2003-2005: THE FORMATIVE YEARS
In 2003, Medhospital evolved into its core mission of empowering families and children with awareness of health and medical help. All attention was focused on communication of health and medical information in a simple and effective language. Biology and medicine are vast subjects with volumes of historical information. How much information to include and what to leave out for clarity was really a challenge. This also led us to the realization that the challenges were not merely due to insufficient consumer knowledge, but also due to inferior and inappropriate information. Sadly, very few organizations were addressing such issues then.
In 2004, keeping with its new approach, www.medhospital.com became www.medhospital.org and its name changed to Medhospital Foundation. It was the birth of a web-based organization with well-defined rules and regulations. Medhospital also created a fund to encourage others to contribute.
Annual letter from our Founder in 2004 >>
In 2005, Medhospital Foundation decided to embark on its journey a little differently than most conventional foundations. We decided not to create funds for other people but fund our own projects and projects that are carried out for or with us. Taking control of what projects to work on allowed us to refocus our efforts on understanding the problem better and broaden our horizons as an information provider. Our main focus still remained the same, provide only essential information so as to increase medical awareness rather than confuse the consumers.
Our Projects >>
Annual letter from our Founder in 2005 >>
2006-2007: REFLECTION AND EVALUATION
With the rapidly evolving digital information technology age, a new problem arose. The internet was cluttered with information, and the distinction between ‘good-information’ and the ‘unreliable-biased-viewpoint’ was almost indistinguishable. This readily available unfiltered information fuelled a lot of confusion in patients. Medhospital had to change its communication strategy to get recognized and noticed.
Annual letter from our Founder in 2006 >>
At five years mark, our projects matured. After assessing the results and priorities from 2002-2007, a new vision and strategy for the next five years was sketched. You can find the outcomes of the projects and our achievements through them can be read in our 5 years report.
5 year report published in 2007 >>
2008-2015: RE-FOCUS
Years following 2007, immense success was achieved with the projects that were initiated through Medhospital. The new articles published from those projects were all very well received and greatly appreciated by our readers. Medhospital became listed on the HONcode website, that gave its credibility. It sparked a lot of constructive debates among reviewers and many valuable suggestions were received. However, through all of it, it was becoming increasingly clear that providing information can only go that far. People have to be able to make proper use of it.
Medhospital was then conceptualized as a foundation so that it does not have to depend and therefore be influenced by any stake holders in the organization. However, during the financial turmoil of the world during 2008-2010, the foundation had a hard time raising and funding projects that did not come with trade offs. It was becoming clear that the company needed a life-line. One of the way that can be done is by creating a for profit company that has a mandate to do social good.
Read the article here >>
In an attempt to commercialize Kashbon Group companies, Biomedcore Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary, was incorporated in 2011. Biomedcore designed and developed medical devices that enabled rapid prediction of cancer relapse.
Read about Biomedcore here >>
Commercialization of a medical device takes a long time and arduous regulatory path often with an uncertain end product. A shorter time horizon for commercialization was needed to sustain the company. In 2015, Biomedcore merged with Suntrition, a contract manufacturer, to become Acenzia. Acenzia had a vision to develop individualized health solutions to make a difference in the outcomes of chronic conditions. Contract manufacturing revenue of Suntrition would bring the very much needed financial stability while the technologies of Biomedcore would bring the necessary innovation and future vision for longterm sustainability for the company.
Read about Acenzia's vision here >>
2015-2019: FORMALIZATION OF KASHBON GROUP
Both Medhospital and Acenzia kept evolving. One of the things that was also becoming apparent by that time was that there was lot more to inadequate information in the general public. Therapeutics and diagnostics had improved drastically in the last few decades but health and wellness of people did not seem to improve. People were increasingly questioning the healthcare. This loss of trust aggravated the issue. As information providers, we had a responsibility in changing the situation. Knowing and understanding a problem and getting help in time is important. However, it is of higher consequence when people can understand how to recognize the development of a problem and then have ways to prevent it. Clearly the company had to be more than just an information provider. A decision was made to reinvent Medhospital and take it to its roots. Apart from researching and publishing about human health, well-being, Medicine, Practice of Medicine, insights into new innovations and evolving healthcare was included to enable individuals and future-focused organizations shape and influence tomorrows healthcare.
2017-2018, were difficult years for Acenzia.
Read the story >>
In 2019, after somehow surviving the ordeal, Acenzia started to rebuild. However, just like the rest of the world, the Acenzia team was oblivious to what was coming next. In a matter of a few months, the world plunged into the chaos of COVID19 pandemic. It was through these years that the team of Acenzia showed real grit and perseverance, and its power of innovation and ingenuity.
Read the story here >>
Eventually, in 2021, Acenzia merged into Novo Integrated Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: NVOS). This story is still evolving.
Read about Novo here >>