AHN’s Dr. Jeffrey Cohen receives Modern Healthcare’s 2026 Innovators Award

Dr. Jeffery Cohen knows a thing or two about innovations in the healthcare industry.

The chief physician executive, community development and innovation officer at Allegheny Health Network likes to call himself a “serial disrupter.” It’s a title he’s earned.

Cohen grew up in Port Jervis, New York, and attended Syracuse University for undergraduate studies and medical school. He completed his residency at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio. After marrying his wife, Ellen — a native Pittsburgher — the pair moved back to the Steel City.

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Cohen, who specializes in surgical oncology and urology, became the partner of another physician he met through his father-in-law, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In 2016, Cohen was named the president of Allegheny General Hospital. He served in the position for four years.

When he stepped down in 2020, Cohen said, his supervisor at Allegheny Health Network, James Benedict, asked him what he wanted to do next. His answer was simple.

“I said give me Suburban [General Hospital in Bellevue] and get the hell out of my way,” Cohen remembered.

Cohen, Benedict, AHN President and CEO Cynthia Hundorfean, and Highmark Health President and CEO David Holmberg decided to repurpose the former Bellevue hospital as the headquarters of a new company: AlphaLab Health. Formed as a partnership between AHN and Innovation Works, the new company was billed as a hub for the region’s life sciences sector, cultivating promising medical technologies and making early-stage investments in promising companies.

The idea was to connect emerging companies in four fields — diagnostics, therapeutics, medical devices and health information technology — with a network of investors, mentors and other resources.

AlphaLab Health’s first cohort included 21 companies.

“There was a definite need to do this and it’s been a yellow brick road,” Cohen said.

And while the idea of an incubator offering guidance and money isn’t new — think of the TV show “Shark Tank” — what differed was Cohen’s intention.

The “serial disrupter” realized that the community where AlphaLab Health was based hadn’t recovered from the collapse of the steel mills, so he began asking fundamental questions.

“How do you keep entrepreneurs in the area? How do you start growing businesses and keeping people here? That’s the only way you’re going to get change,” he said.

The example of the steel industry was something Cohen took to heart, not just because of its effects on region, but also as a possible harbinger for the healthcare industry, especially in terms of consolidation.

“I didn’t want to see healthcare go through what was inevitably going to happen,” he said.

In an effort to prevent the healthcare industry from facing the same challenges as the steel industry, Cohen posed another basic question.

“How do I help change a bureaucracy that doesn’t want to change because they basically have unlimited federal funding?” he asked.

The goal, he said, is to control healthcare costs by doing things better, cheaper and faster. And, he said, you can’t ignore the community. He knew that to find answers to those questions he needed not only to innovate, but to find innovators.

AlphaLab Health, he said, finds those people.

“Being an innovator is a personality defect you’re born with,” he said. “They’re born that way. About 1% of the population fits into that category. They have three similar traits: One, they’re curious as hell. Number two is they’re a pain in the ass to bureaucracies, and number three is they don’t care about being rich. They’d rather be right. That’s not a group that does commercialization well. It does inception and problem-solving well.”

That’s where AlphaLab Health comes in. Each company selected receives mentoring, support and an investment of up to $100,000 in exchange for 2% equity via a convertible note. As companies grow and monetize, returns are recycled back into the fund, ensuring long term support for future healthcare innovators.

The organization supports companies working in several categories: software, hardware, life sciences and robotics startups.

“We’ve been very successful at attracting local companies and bringing more innovators to the area,” Cohen said. “I started talking with 412×972 program [which focuses on building ties between Pittsburgh and Israel to drive collaborative opportunities]. That was our first international outreach program.”

Cohen said there are now six countries that want to work with AlphaLab Health.

Its impact has grown in Bellevue. The former hospital now houses a pharmaceutical company, a software firm specializing in sleep apnea mask fitting, a manufacturer of biodegradable pill cases, a company producing specialized seating for people with spinal disorders, and a community catering incubator utilizing the former hospital’s commercial kitchen, among other ventures.

And it has a partnership with the Northgate School District, providing students with hands on workforce development opportunities and greater educational stability.

Cohen said this proves his theory that a project like AlphaLab Health can benefit the broader community where it operates. He pointed to progress at Northgate School District, as an example.

In 2020, only 30% of third graders read at grade level. By 2023, 80% of the third graders were reading at the fifth-grade level.

Since 2021, AHN Suburban’s partnership with AlphaLab Health has invested in 36 companies, securing more than $65 million in follow on funding and generated 114 direct jobs and 362 indirect jobs.

Housing prices and median incomes also are rising.

“People have started to move back to Bellevue,” he said. “It’s about how all these things combine.”

In the end, Cohen said, the community is moving from passive acceptance to active participation.

“This is as much an economic story as it is a healthcare story or education story,” he said. “It’s not just about starting businesses. It’s about change and how you manage that change in a first world economy system.”

For his work with AlphaLab Health, Cohen was recently selected by Modern Healthcare as a winner of one its 2026 Innovators Awards, which “recognizes individuals and organizations that drive meaningful innovation to improve care delivery, achieve measurable results, and advance both clinical and financial performance in the healthcare industry,” according to a statement released by AHN.

Modern Healthcare is one of the nation’s most influential sources of healthcare business and policy news.

Innovation Works President and CEO Ven Raju noted in the statement that Cohen looks beyond individual programs to “focus on how innovation can transform entire communities. His work at AHN Suburban shows how strategic investment in entrepreneurship and healthcare can drive economic growth, expand opportunity, and reimagine what a community can become.”

Mark Sevco, president of Allegheny Health Network, said in the statement that Cohen’s “commitment to leveraging innovation not only for medical advancement but for the holistic betterment of the community exemplifies the very best of healthcare leadership. AHN Suburban stands as a testament to what’s possible when we think beyond the hospital’s walls.”

For Cohen, the awards and accolades are nice, but his yellow brick road of innovation simply leads to the answer of one important question: “How do I take care of poor people that live in Pittsburgh?” PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.