A local effort to improve health care for kids in the age of Covid-19 has identified a group of contenders doing just that.
The “Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!” competition, the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation’s initiative to find and fund coronavirus-related pediatric medical devices, has named its winners — spanning from a portable intensive care unit ventilator to a wearable ultrasound for babies. That roster also included one local player, a Maryland company with a tool to diagnose ear infections.
The contest, held by Children’s National Hospital’s Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation and the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering, invested a total of $250,000 into eight ventures to support pediatric patients amid the pandemic.
The virtual event, also supported by nonprofit accelerator MedTech Innovator, involved a panel of 75 experts from across sectors who judged the ventures based on both clinical significance and commercial feasibility, while considering the development process, resources and potential go-to-market strategy, Children’s National said in a press release Wednesday.
The winning innovators — focused on telemedicine, home health monitoring and diagnoses of children during the global health crisis — pitched their devices to the panel before a question-and-answer session for each.
“Because of the high quality of submissions and the critical need for pandemic-related pediatric medical devices, we are excited to recognize and award eight innovations from this event’s highly competitive field,” said Kolaleh Eskandanian, vice president and chief innovation officer at Children’s National and NCC-PDI principal investigator, in a statement. “COVID-19 is presenting unprecedented challenges and my NCC-PDI colleagues and I know that supporting pediatric innovations will improve care for the patients and families we serve.”
Here’s the winner roster — and the dollars they secured:
$50,000 grants
- Medipines (Yorba Linda, California): A monitor that assesses critical respiratory parameters as the patient breathes.
- Vitls (Houston, Texas): a wearable platform to monitor a patient’s vitals and transmit the information to the doctor.
- TGV-Dx (New York): A test system to rapidly determine an effective antibiotic regimen.
$20,000 grants:
- OtoPhoto (Baltimore): A smart otoscope to quickly diagnose ear infections at home
- X-Biomedical (Philadelphia): A portable, smart ICU ventilator for kids and adults
- Hopscotch (Ithaca, New York): Computer games that use cognitive behavioral therapy to encourage children to finish their treatment programs
- Bloom Standard (Hong Kong, China): Wearable ultrasound that performs cardiac and pulmonary screenings in infants
- Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (Philadelphia): A transparent, reusable face mask that designed to display facial expressions and improve communication
The competition funding came from a grant from the Food and Drug Administration and a gift from Chesapeake Bay Candle founder and Yes She May creator Mei Xu.
And there’s more where that came from. Johnson & Johnson Innovation plans to tap one of these eight winners for its 2021 JLABS residency at Children’s National Hospital’s Research and Innovation Campus on the former Walter Reed Medical Center property. J&J will occupy 32,000 square feet in the project’s research and innovation building, now under construction.
