Modernizing Medicine opens headquarters at old IBM office

A Boca Raton company that has been a trailblazer in the health-technology industry is opening its new headquarters on the site where one of the world’s top tech innovations was born — the personal computer.

With IBM’s research operations as its original tenant, the office at the Boca Raton Innovation Campus is “such an historic building,” said Dan Cane, cofounder and CEO of Modernizing Medicine, one of the fastest-growing health industry ventures in South Florida. The former IBM building is at 4850 Network Way, in a business park off west Yamato Road.

“We’re connecting the innovation of the past with the innovation of today,” said Cane, 42, who was only 5 years old when his parents bought an IBM PC. “This is a building where people had the freedom and capacity to think big about the future.”

IBM was at the forefront of computing technology in the early 1980s, with a team of engineers in Boca Raton.

Today, Modernizing Medicine is developer of iPad-based electronic records and a data resource system, used by specialty doctors such as dermatologists and ear, nose and throat practices, to make their jobs more efficient and provide worldwide medical research to patients.

So to pay homage, Modernizing Medicine has named its parts of the office after IBM’s innovations. Cane’s office is in the ”PC” wing, for example, while one conference room is the “Motherboard” and another is “Simon,” after the world’s first smartphone, created by IBM in the early 1990s.

Modernizing Medicine is leasing 100,000 square feet of space in the building at 4850 Network Way, a building designed by famous architect Marcel Breuer. His iconic buildings include the IBM Research Center on the French Riviera and the Whitney Museum in New York.

The new headquarters reflects Modernizing Medicine’s culture, which is about “innovation,” he said, so the office design offers many collaborative spaces. “We’re driven to find innovative ways that save time for our providers and patients.”

Founded in 2010 by serial entrepreneur Cane and dermatologist Michael Sherling, Modernizing Medicine now employs more than 800 people. The relocation is being phased so that the final group, still located at the Research Park at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, will move later this year, the company said.

In 2017, Florida awarded $6 million in state, county and city incentives to Modernizing Medicine if it creates 838 confirmed jobs at an average annual salary of $55,000 by 2022. The company is well on its way to the job creation goal.

To fuel its growth, Modernizing Medicine has raised venture capital, including $231 million from New York-based private equity firm Warburg Pincus, making it one of the top 10 deals in the country

in the second quarter of 2017, according to the MoneyTree Report. In total, the company has raised about $300 million, Cane said.

In 2015, Modernizing Medicine received an investment from IBM, part of a $20 million financing round.

MODERNIZING MEDICINE/COURTESY Medical data company Modernizing Medicine has opened a new headquarters in the former IBM building in Boca Raton.