CNY Biotech Accelerator selects teams for Medical Device Innovation Challenge

SYRACUSE — Upstate Medical University’s CNY Biotech Accelerator (CNYBAC) has selected the teams for its 2022 Medical Device Innovation Challenge (MDIC).

The MDIC teams will participate in the Empire State Development grant-supported program, which is now in its sixth year, per a June 27 announcement on Upstate’s website. The MDIC review committee — a select group of subject-matter experts — chose the participating teams, Upstate Medical said. 

New this year, in addition to the four selected later-stage teams, MDIC is piloting an expansion program resulting from the large number of applications that Upstate students and faculty submitted. 

These early-stage applicants were invited to attend the SUNY Summer Startup School and, upon graduation, will be accepted automatically into the MDIC program. It means this year’s program will be supporting nine teams.

The CNYBAC is “very excited” about the selected teams, Kathi Durdon, executive director of the CNYBAC, said. She called them medical-device “innovators” working to commercialize exciting technology with the intent to positively impact how patients are diagnosed and treated.

“We have graduated 28 teams to date with many of our graduates generating significant milestones, such as receiving grant awards, winning competitions, partnering with Upstate researchers, and being accepted into accelerator programs,” Durdon said. “We have wonderful mentor support in areas such as regulatory, product development, startup company commercialization, intellectual property protection and funding support. Our mentors are the key to the program’s success.”

The MDIC participants have access to intensive targeted mentorship and resources from a “strong New York state innovation ecosystem,” Upstate Medical said. In addition, those involved also receive student-based commercialization research through NYSTAR asset partner, the Innovation Law Center at Syracuse University. 

As the six-month program continues, teams are offered workspace and access to prototyping equipment in the CNYBAC Creation Garage, as well as coordinated connections to Upstate Medical University research and clinical expertise and CORE facilities.

The 2023 MDIC program will accept applications from Jan. 1 to March 31, 2023.

The 2022 MDIC participants and their devices are as follows. The participants provided the descriptions of their devices, Upstate Medical University noted in its announcement. 

SurgiVance

SurgiVance works to bring “rapid diagnosis” to the point of care by developing diagnostic imaging technologies using advanced optics. SurgiVance is advanced surgical pathology to digitize the pathologist at the point of care with advanced-imaging hardware and new AI insights. 

3Dspine

Spinal disorders are among the most common cause of severe pain and disability across the globe, with enormous direct and indirect costs from physical impairment. 3D printed modeling of patient-specific imaging using automated segmentation has the potential to improve preoperative planning of complex correction procedures, resident training programs, and spine-related research. 

3Dspine plans to develop a workflow for creating an anatomically and biomechanically equivalent 3D spine prototype to further investigate the capabilities that 3D printed modeling has in the treatment of adult spine deformity.

EndObetes

Obesity and associated Type-2 diabetes are epidemic and associated with significant morbidity, mortality, and health-care costs. EndObetes’ goal is to bring to market endoscopically placed devices to treat epidemics. The firm’s device mimics the anatomic and physiologic changes of gastric bypass surgery which has shown dramatic weight loss and remission of diabetes. 

PapEasy

Papeasy’s vision is for every woman to be empowered with an “effective, private, and comfortable” cervical self-screening option, in order to increase global accessibility and cervical cancer survivability rates worldwide. Papeasy’s mission is to develop user friendly self-testing methodologies for the most common STI and gynecological tests and screens, providing “critical technological and user experience upgrades, bringing the OB-GYN standard-of-care model into the 21st century.” 

The following are the SUNY Upstate Medical University participants in MDIC.

Dr. Anthony Feghali

The device under development is a unique, expandable catheter that can assist in the removal of blood clots “more effectively.” Various size catheters are currently used to remove clots depending on the location and size. This catheter will be able to expand and change shape in order to remove the clot in a “more clinically and cost-effective manner.” 

Dr. Ronald Miller

Diabetic foot ulcers remain a significant disease burden in the growing diabetic population. Diabetic patients are often unable to complete the daily foot exams necessary to ensure prevention of foot ulcers. This research has created a device to monitor the surface of the foot to detect early signs of tissue disruption. This digital imaging-based solution can be used independently by patients at home without any assistance where data can be initially processed within the device as well as uploaded to the cloud for further analysis by a medical professional. Using this assessment tool, a change in the patient’s foot health can be detected prior to significant tissue damage. 

Dr. Carlos Muniz

Nonconvulsive status epilepticus is a neurological emergency that requires prompt diagnosis and treatment. Performing standard EEG (electroencephalogram) is a time consuming and resource intensive procedure and most hospitals in the U.S. do not have EEG technicians available 24 hours a day. The identified solution is a point-of-care EEG device for rapid screening of patients in the emergency department or ICU by having the physician mount the EEG device on the fingertips and performing the study (as a cardiologist uses a stethoscope). 

Arvydas Matiukas

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration mandates screening of each new drug for cardiac safety because it may introduce a life-threatening reaction. Currently, it is mostly performed on animals (and patients during final testing in clinical trials) using classical EKG-like electrical measurements that have not significantly been innovated during the last 100 years. This approach is “costly and slow.” This innovation offers switching from electrical to modern contactless optical detection of the electric activity of cells. 

Hesham Masoud, MD & Andrew Decker – Apis. LLC

This startup is centered around service improvements to health-care processes using technology to create an IoT (Internet of Things) to help providers and resource allocation decision-makers through use of device integrated analytics. Its technology is a coupled rotating hemostatic valve (RHV) and Tuohy-Borst adapter (TBA) for use with catheter-based procedures. Integrated sensors provide operative feedback on forces applied and positioning of tools currently in use. The display is paired with specialized heads-up display in the form of personal radiation safety protective goggles with integrated communication applications. These products constitute the foundation for an IoT that “can be harnessed for a training, quality improvement and resource allocation management tailored to the unique provider practice and operative technique.”