Summary
Vega Health, founded by Dr. Mark Sendak, aims to democratize AI-based healthcare solutions by providing small to mid-sized health systems with access to proven AI innovations developed by healthcare professionals. The company offers an infrastructure platform that includes a marketplace of validated solutions, helping innovators commercialize their technologies while ensuring transparency and value for healthcare providers. Vega Health’s approach focuses on strategic alignment, real-time monitoring, and comprehensive validation to ensure the successful implementation of AI solutions in healthcare settings.
Editors: Raymond D. Aller, MD & Dennis Winsten
Company increases access to AI innovations developed by health care professionals
February 2026—While many pay lip service to democratizing artificial intelligence-based health care solutions so they are accessible to health systems of all types, sizes, and locations, Mark Sendak, MD, MPP, has put his money where his mouth is.
In October, Dr. Sendak launched Vega Health by following a business plan with a two-part agenda. First, the company is bringing health care AI innovations siloed in academic medical centers into an environment where they can be shared with others. Second, it is providing small to mid-sized health systems with not only access to those innovations but also with the necessary infrastructure for using them.
Setting Vega apart from many other health care AI companies is that it offers technologies developed by health care professionals, who are largely from leading medical institutions, following rigorous guidelines, rather than solutions developed by information technology professionals who sometimes have little to no connection to health care.
The company sells an infrastructure platform to health systems for an annual subscription fee, which provides the latter with access to a marketplace that contains a range of solutions from health care innovators nationwide. All marketplace offerings have been proven to work in real-world clinical environments. Vega shares with participating innovators the revenue that is generated by health systems integrating the innovators’ respective solutions. A non-exclusive licensing clause ensures that the developers can distribute their solutions as they see fit.
The 10-person company, which is led by Dr. Sendak and his director of business development, Adam Brickman, will also help interested innovators by commercializing their solutions and serving as a multi-channel distribution partner.
“This multi-homing approach allows our clients to do something of value that will work for whomever and allows innovators to bring their solutions to the wider marketplace,” Dr. Sendak explains. “We just want to help innovators realize the value of what they’re doing.”
Building Vega Health was an outgrowth of Dr. Sendak’s work with the Duke Institute for Health Innovation and as a founder of the Health AI Partnership, which he codeveloped with leaders from Duke Health, Mayo Clinic, UC Berkeley, and the global law firm DLA Piper. The partnership was created, in part, to support safe and effective deployment of AI software and address challenges posed by the increasing use of AI algorithms across health care.
In his prior career endeavors, Dr. Sendak saw “just how valuable it could be—for patients and clinicians—to successfully scale and implement effective AI solutions across the health care ecosystem,” he says. Therefore, Dr. Sendak doesn’t require model developers to pay to offer solutions in the marketplace. He also avoids promoting solutions based on relationships or revenue potential.