INDIANAPOLIS, Ind., Sept. 27, 2018 — BioCrossroads announces the finalists for its life sciences start up business plan competition and its inaugural Indiana Inject Tech Challenge – a digital health competition.

Since 2012, the BioCrossroads New Venture Competition has awarded more than $350,000 to 23 startup companies, which have been able to secure nearly $35 million in follow-on funding. The New Venture Competition was open to life sciences (biotechnology, pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostic, ag-biotech) and health information technology companies holding a substantial nexus to Indiana. Five finalists will compete for a total of $50,000 in cash awards on Oct. 9 during the 2018 Indiana Life Sciences Summit:

  •  Predictive Wear creates an easy to use, smart compression sock to aid in the elimination of medical complications such as venous ulceration and deep vein thrombosis.  Capable of monitoring the patient’s progress and detecting complications in real time, Predictive Wear incorporates data, analytics, and sensors to improve patient outcomes. (Purdue University)

 

  • SalvePeds is an early-stage pharmaceutical company offering the novel drug ND-336 as a topical therapy for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs). SalvePeds’ goal is to provide an effective, safe and convenient therapeutic treatment for DFUs to improve the quality of life for patients and ultimately decrease the number of ulcer related amputations. (University of Notre Dame)

 

  • Structured Immunity is a biotechnology company focused on accelerating and de-risking the development of T cell therapies. They offer highly specialized R&D services to biopharmaceutical companies to enable the improved validation and optimization of T cell receptor molecules for safer, more effective therapeutic use. (University of Notre Dame)

 

  • Novosteo was founded to reduce the morbidity, mortality and loss of productivity associated with bone fractures. Based on discoveries of agents that accelerate bone regeneration and breakthroughs in methods to target these agents selectively to fracture surfaces, Novosteo has designed a series of fracture-targeted drugs that concentrate a drug’s healing power specifically at the fracture site. (Purdue University)

 

  • OmniVis’ patented technology uses a revolutionary sensing technique to quantify and analyze biomolecular solutions directly at the source. Their easy to use hardware device and consumable test kit attaches to a smartphone and reduces the detection process to 30 minutes, accurately and affordably. (Purdue University)

In addition to a cash prize of $25,000 and exposure to hundreds of influencers at the Summit, the winner of the competition now has access to the Indiana Seed Fund (ISF) staff and the fund’s network of resources to provide business planning and early-stage strategic support. They will also have the opportunity to make a presentation to the ISF investment committee for added exposure. Second and third place companies were awarded cash prizes of $15,000 and $10,000 respectively.

Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP was the presenting sponsor. VisionTech Partners, Metazoa Brewing Company, Halo Capital Group and 16 Tech supported the New Venture Competition through judging and sponsorships.

BioCrossroads announces inaugural Indiana Inject Tech Challenge finalists

BioCrossroads also announced the finalists of its inaugural Indiana Inject Tech Challenge – a digital health competition that seeks to catalyze the creation of new, disruptive solutions designed to improve patient outcomes. The winners will be announced on Oct. 9 at the Indiana Life Sciences Summit with first place receiving $10,000 in prize money.

The Inject Tech Challenge sought to answer four health challenge statements, including a digital health and mobile medical solution for measuring, monitoring and treating disease progressing in chronic pain, prediabetes/diabetes and/or diabetic complications and the development of an innovative, total support system/model to enable clinical trials participation of diverse populations.

The three finalists are:

  • Indianapolis-based DigiBiomarker, an innovative platform capable of capturing digital information directly from patients through their smartphones or via a web-application;
  •  Indianapolis-based Ecogenesis11, developing an artificial intelligence-based clinical trial platform to recruit and retain patients; and
  • Indianapolis-based Regenstrief Institute, developing a platform to effectively access and leverage social factors data to enable health care organizations to take further action and address the whole patient to attain better health outcomes.

Eli Lilly and Company was the presenting sponsor of the Inject Tech Challenge. Additional sponsors include Roche Diagnostics, Taft Law, Kronos, and BlackInc. IT.

About BioCrossroads
BioCrossroads (www.biocrossroads.com) is Indiana’s initiative to grow, advance and invest in the life sciences, a public-private collaboration that supports the region’s existing research and corporate strengths while encouraging new business development.  BioCrossroads provides money and support to life sciences businesses, launches new life sciences enterprises (Indiana Biosciences Research Institute, Indiana Health Information Exchange, Fairbanks Institute for Healthy Communities, BioCrossroadsLINX, OrthoWorx and Datalys Center), expands collaboration and partnerships among Indiana’s life science institutions, promotes science education and markets Indiana’s life sciences industry.