Growing Downtown Tech Biz Has a Record For Hiring UA Grads

KVOA | August 29, 2014

Sinfonia Health Care and its newest spin-off, SinfoniaRX, a medical call center, make one of the fastest growing technology based health companies in the country, and it all came out of the University of Arizona.

The company has hired 150 new employees so far in 2014, many of them U of A grads, like Jessica DiLeo "I never thought that after I graduated I would be staying in Tucson, my idea was come down here for school and head back to Phoenix," she said.

To her surprise, the new pharmacist found work, not behind a counter, but behind a computer. The program she uses was designed by future SinfoniaRX CEO Kevin Boesen.

"It's fascinating," said Bosen. "When I started the program in 2006 I didn't imagine it would grow as big as it did."

Because he was a university employee at the time, his program is U of A property.

So he went through ‘Tech Launch Arizona' to get the idea off the ground, a University office that has helped start up 11 more companies in the last year.

"We license the technology to the company which means they pay a royalty," said Tech Launch Arizona Vice President David Allen.

It's a symbiotic relationship, with each party playing off the success of the other.

"This is going to be a company that's significant in terms of and people who are invested in this company are going to have a good return on that investment," said Allen.

The business grew so rapidly it needed to find an outside partner. "When we were looking to do the spin-off we had interest from investment firms on the east coast, on the west coast, and we knew that meant leaving Tucson," explained Boesen.

They chose to join forces with Sinfonia, a home-based care company headquartered at One East Toole Street, to make SinfoniaRX, a medical call center.

Together they're creating a buzz in the medical technology industry, turning heads toward southern Arizona.

"Kids that used to go to San Diego, or Austin, Texas, or Portland would now maybe look at Tucson as a place they would want to live and stay," said Fletcher McCusker, Sinfonia Health Care CEO.

The company has also been expanding to other states, including most recently, Florida, but will continue to call Tucson home.

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