If you’re in South Carolina, it’s not just the BBQ you’ll smell cooking the afternoon of Nov. 15. The SC BIO Pitch Contest pits nine startups against each other for the chance to win $2,500. Seven of those are healthcare startups, more specifically–medical device companies. From antimicrobial-eluting sutures and surgical meshes to a synthetic meniscus, the startups duking it out in the Palmetto State are sure to be hard to choose from.
Here’s the medtech competition:
1. Additive Drug Delivery Devices, AKA AD3
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
This company’s fibers and non-toxic absorbable products allow sutures and surgical meshes to deliver antimicrobials on a long-term, controlled-release–up to three months.
2. TriValve
This startup has come up with a fabrication method to produce bioprosthetic heart valves. Instead of using glutaraldehyde fixation, the status quo, the company uses alternative chemical treatments.
3. Better IV
The company has created an IV catheter that can be “flexed to move with patients as they move and to be secured in more comfortable and less bulky positions than standard catheters.”
A Personalized Approach to Medication Nonadherence
At the Abarca Forward conference earlier this year, George Van Antwerp, managing director at Deloitte, discussed how social determinants of health and a personalized member experience can improve medication adherence and health outcomes.
4. Sealcath
This Mt. Pleasant-based startup has a catheter with a seal around the orifice that reduces loss of leakage from both the product and the patient. That will “improve the treatment of intussusception in children and reduce medical radiation exposure dosage.”
5. Sierra MedTech, LLC
This startup is still in the feasibility phase, but is working on “a synthetic meniscus that accurately mimics the natural structure and maintains meniscal volume in the knee.”
6. Engage
A Clemson spinout working on a “variant of a knee replacement that can actually be locked in place” as an alternative to patients who might otherwise consider knee arthrodesis (having the leg bones fused together). For more on this company, read the MedCity story here.
This woman-owned and run business hopes to disrupt the U.S. medical bracing and supports market with a self-applied shoulder brace “that allows for direct support to the shoulder” and has a custom fit insert.
The other two companies include a startup with an mhealth platform for chronic disease management and a company with “bulkhead quick-connect fitting .”
SC BIO President Wayne Roper told South Carolina ETV Radio the state is trying to earn its name in the biotech sector, wedged between the South’s major medtech hubs, North Carolina and Georgia. Events like this, which is part of a larger conference, will help. For the full ETV interview, click here.
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