Each year at the SXSW Interactive festival in Austin, early stage companies across multiple industries compete in a pitch competition. This year’s finalists in the health and wellness track reflect not only the convergence between life sciences and health IT but also between sensors and smart textiles. Here is a closer look at the companies selected, which will take part in the competition from March 10-11.
Airpop is a business based in Shanghai, China that focuses on public health, specifically coping with poor air quality. It developed face masks to filter out air pollutants. The company used 3-D scanning to develop masks to conform to customers faces. Chris Hosmer and Jett Fu are the cofounder. Although the company trades as Airpop in China, it is also known as Aetheris .
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
Cambridge Cancer Genomics has developed blood tests to inform and support targeted cancer therapies. The goal is to reduce the time it takes to determine whether chemotherapy is working from the current timeframe of six months. Reducing that timeframe could mean more time to modify treatment and reduce the side effects of chemotherapy, according to the company’s website. Cofounders include CEO John Cassidy, CTO Harry Clifford, and Chief Product Officer Evalene Tsai.
HealthTensor is a health IT company claiming to use AI to automatically review patient data, diagnose the most common conditions, and create documentation for physicians. It also mines medical records for pertinent information and automate physician documentation, according to the description of the business on SXSW’s website. Cofounders dor the San Francisco business include CEO Eli-Ben Joseph and COO Nate Wilson.
Nanowear is a connected-self technology platform for diagnostics and disease management based on proprietary cloth-based nanosensors and analytics. This is the first and only cloth-based platform that has been approved by the FDA for remote cardiac monitoring. Nanowear’s first product, SimpleSense, focuses on congestive heart failure management. Cofounders for the New York-based business, which has a research and development office in State College, Pennsylvania are CEO Venk Varadan and Chief Innovation Officer Vijay Varadan.
Nextbiotics is a biotechnology platform that engineers viruses. Its first product targets antibiotic-resistant infections in a treatment that combines bacteriophage therapy with CRISPR technology to reverse antibiotic resistance. The San Francisco area business was cofounded by Angie Carrillo Reluz and Maricel Saenz.
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.
In addition to the finalists, three alternates are also listed. They include:
Fited is one of the most interesting sounding companies on the list. Cofounders Erdem Ay and Akanksha Vyas are developing an app that lets medical professionals prescribe 3D printed prostheses from a smartphone, according to the company’s website. One example is 3D printed scoliosis braces.
Lilu developed a breast milk pumping bra that uses a built-in compression system to pump milk more efficiently but also uses breast massage, according to TechCrunch. Adriana Vazquez and Sujay Suresh are the cofounders of the New York-based business.
Sempulse developed a wearable for patients’ ears to collect vital signs data as a triage tool for the military, according to its website. FieldVitals was designed to prioritize patients based on pre-determined, adjustable thresholds, their calculated Injury Severity Scores, and a pattern recognition analysis of each patient’s biosignals against known historical cases with outcomes. The plan for the San Diego-based business is to roll out that technology to the healthcare industry.
