Health care IT firm bolsters tech-related growth in downtown Harrisburg

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That’s the way Mel Billingsley, president and CEO of the Harrisburg-based Life Sciences Greenhouse of Central Pennsylvania, describes a recent move by Maryland-based Evidera to open in the greenhouse’s building at 225 Market St.

“It’s an alumni company,” he said of Evidera, an emerging data analytics company in the health care information technology field.

Billingsley’s comment is based on the résumé of the woman leading the Evidera office — Stephanie Reisinger. Reisinger, vice president of technology solutions for Evidera, previously worked for ProSanos Corp., a company that was funded by the greenhouse.

ProSanos started with a few people in Harrisburg in 2003 and was acquired by United BioSource Corp. in 2010 after it had reached about 15 people.

Reisinger left United BioSource last year to pursue the opportunity with Evidera. She is leading the Harrisburg office, which currently has five employees. She also is looking to grow the company’s software-as-a-service platform with a team in San Francisco.

She hopes Evidera can be another seed company in growing regional biotechnology and life sciences.

“My objective is to think about technology and the next generation of technology,” she said.

Pharmaceutical companies are the target clients, she said. “It’s big data, big patient data.”

Reisinger said she’s expecting to add to both teams as the company evolves. The talent pool may be smaller in Harrisburg than in San Francisco, but there are fewer companies vying for that talent.

Evidera is one more company that might help retain local talent coming out of places such as Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, Billingsley said. 

He cited the emerging Blackberry Technology Center, which involves HU, as another way to boost local synergy and create more potential for cross-fertilization of tech talent.

“It’s nice when we get a few of these companies,” he said. “There is a natural churn between talent. The more of these you get, the more you will continue to get.”

The downtown location and proximity to commuter transportation are keys, he said. The lower cost of living here compared to other major metropolitan areas should also play in Harrisburg’s favor, he said.

Having industry veterans such as Reisinger come back with new companies bodes well for the industry locally, Billingsley added. “It gets the band on the road again. There is logical outgrowth of having been acquired by a much larger entity and doing it again.”