A consortium led by Children’s National Hospital is teaming up with a California nonprofit for a $50,000 competition geared toward diversifying pediatric medical device innovation.
The Alliance for Pediatric Device Innovation (APDI), a Food and Drug Administration-funded consortium of hospitals led for the past decade by Children’s National, is participating in an African-American and Hispanic background-focused version of its broader Make Your Medical Device Pitch For Kids! Program. The goal of APDI is to further advancements in pediatric medical devices, which lag far behind innovations in adult medical devices.
Often surgeons need to “jerry-rig devices while they’re doing surgery to make it fit for children,” according to Kolaleh Eskandanian, vice president and chief innovation officer at Children’s National and APDI program director and principal investigator.
“These clinicians simply don't have enough tools in their toolbox to provide the best care for kids,” Eskandanian said.
MedTech Color, founded in 2017 in Los Angeles, is a nonprofit that hosts annual pitch competitions in an effort to advance the representation of people of color in the medical device industry and to nurture the next generation of founders. It typically offers a $155,000 prize pool for participants in its MedTech Color pitch competition.
Take the disparities in pediatric versus adult care, then add the intersection of race and you have what Eskandanian describes as an “inequity within inequity.” The creation of the MedTech Color edition of Make Your Medical Device Pitch For Kids!, which focuses on innovators of African American and Hispanic backgrounds, is how APDI plans to address that gap.
MedTech will accept 10 companies into a month-long virtual accelerator to prepare for the panel of judges at a February pitch competition in California. The prize pool for the pediatric track of the MedTech Color 2024 pitch competition is $50,000, coming from APDI.
“In the past, we did not have an exclusive mechanism to open up a competition to African American and Hispanic innovators,” Eskandanian said “This is a way to make sure that there is a set-aside funding mechanism, so we don't forget about the inclusion, but the funding is available to everyone.”
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court severely curtailing affirmative action in higher education, the act of setting aside funds or contracts to address a disparity along racial lines comes with legal risk. Cheyne Stennis, program manager for MedTech Color, said the ruling has been discussed at the nonprofit's board meetings and with its legal counsel to make sure its programs stay in compliance.
“It's an inappropriate ruling and the funds that are out there are there for a reason, to give opportunities to those that don't normally get the opportunity," Stennis said. “It's going to be tough if more comes of it and we’re trying to make sure we stay ahead of it.”
Applications for the competition are due by Nov. 10.
