Devices & Diagnostics, Health IT, Startups

Who made it through to the finals of Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize?

There are 10 companies taking different approaches to home diagnostics tools that have made it […]

There are 10 companies taking different approaches to home diagnostics tools that have made it through to the multi-year endurance test that’s the Qualcomm Tricorder XPrize.

In the finals, their devices will be tested by a consumer panel. Teams in the final round compete in both diagnostic experience evaluations and consumer testing, scheduled to happen sometime about one year from now. The final judging and awards ceremony will take place in the first half of 2016. The judges and panel will choose the first place ($7 million), second ($2 million), and third-place winner ($1 million).

In the qualifying round, each team had to submit an entry that addressed safety, user experience and a health assessment evaluation, according to a statement from Qualcomm. The judging panel, which included digital health and medical industry experts, reviewed 21 team submissions from nine countries and selected the 10 best entries.

The finalists include teams from Canada, India and Slovenia, as well as Taiwan, the U.S. and the UK.

Here are the 10 teams that qualified:

Aezon Health, a team made up of Johns Hopkins University students. They are competing in partnership with developers of Biomeme, Symcat, Spirosmart, and Aegle. Team leader Tatiana Rypinski is a biomedical engineering student at Johns Hopkins University.

Cloud Dx owns devices produced by Biosign, which developed Pulsewave, an FDA-cleared device that can instantly show vital signs including blood pressure, heart rate and pulse variability. The Canadian team is led by Dr. Sandeep (Sonny) Kohli, a practicing physician at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital.

Danvantri, a team from India led by Sridharan Mani, produced a palm-sized device that’s designed to track vitals as well as sleep, respiration and urinalysis.

DMI includes scientists from the Boston area led by Dr. Eugene Y. Chan, the founder, president, and CSO of the DNA Medicine Institute. Current lab analysis – which are core ones that we can shrink down to something the size of a matchbox to analyze blood using laser. It uses a vital sign strap to monitor data for 72 hours, it also has a user interface that helps consumers do their own analysis.

Dynamical Biomarkers Group is made up of members from the Center for Dynamical Biomarkers and Translational Medicine at the National Central University in Taiwan. The team is led by K.-T. Li the co-director of the Rey Institute for Nonlinear Dynamics in Medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Chung-Kang Peng, dean of the College of Health Sciences and Technology at National Central University in Taiwan.

Final Frontier Medical Devices really took the Star Trek theme to heart. The team, based just outside of Philadelphia, is led by Emergency Department physician Dr. Basil Harris who heads up Basil Leaf Technologies. Its device is referred to as DxtER (pronounced like Dexter).

MESI, a Slovenian medical device company, developed a diagnostic tool which combines a wearable bracelet to track vitals and a smartphone app that can project data from the wristband and smartphone attachments to do things such as detect an ear infection. MESI is led by CEO Jakob Susteric.

SCANurse is made up in part of folks from London-based Kingston University, who have focused on developing a user interface that engages consumers. The team, led by biomedical engineer Anil Vidaiya, has developed a device designed to identify tuberculosis, COPD, pneumonia, ear infections, leukocytosis, and Hepatitis A as well as detect and track vital signs.

Scanadu wants to cover all the bases of the quantified self and beyond with its Scout device. Although it has had some production hiccups, it has broken records on crowdfunding site Indiegogo, which illustrates how its technology has resonated with the public. Walter De Brouwer heads up the team.

Zensor is a team made up of Intelesens staff led by CTO Jim Mcaughlin, a professor in the School of Engineering at University of Ulster, director of the Engineering Research Institute and of the Nanotechnology and Integrated Bioengineering Centre. The device includes a cardiac monitoring tool that can generate alerts triggered by arrhythmias.

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