Houston health tech accelerator names annual cohort ahead of its pitch competition

female founders

Meet the female health tech founders being accelerated by Ignite Healthcare this year. Photo courtesy of Ignite

Last month, a Houston organization dedicated to supporting female founders in health care kicked off its 2023 accelerator with cohort participants from across the country.

Ignite Healthcare Network, based in Houston, is a nonprofit founded on the mission of supporting women in health care. Ignite established its 12-week accelerator program to help advance and connect female health tech founders with mentors and potential clients as their startups scale.

"We have 19 founders doing great work, and we have them matched with three to four advisors helping to mentor them," Ayse McCracken, founder and board chair of Ignite tells InnovationMap. "We also have a virtual learning program, which is new this year, and we have two sessions of those a week."

The programming is curated to tackle the health tech industry's biggest topics and provide advice for a small group of engaged startups, McCracken explains. In its fifth year now, the program has a large group of partners that are involved.

"We've had 91 companies come through our program in the last fours years," McCracken says. "They've raised over $550 million."

The cohort concludes on November 9 with the Fire Pitch Competition at the Ion, where a handful of finalists — selected by Ignite's team of mentors — will present to win the top award.

This year's cohort includes:

  • Somer Baburek, CEO and co-founder of Hera Biotech
  • Sue Carr, president and founder of CarrTech Corp
  • Suchismita Acharya, CEO, chief strategy officer, and co-founder of AyuVis
  • Asma Mirza, CEO and founder of Steradian Technologies
  • J’Vanay Santos, CEO and founder of MyLÚA Health
  • Maureen Brown, CEO and co-founder of Mosie Baby
  • Elizabeth Friedman, president and founder of Safen Medical Products
  • Meghan Doyle, CEO and co-founder of Partum Health
  • Marina Tarasova, COO and co-founder of Paloma Health
  • Melissa Bowley, CEO and founder of Flourish Care
  • Molly Hegarty, CEO and founder of Junum
  • Patty Lee, CEO and co-founder of Orbit Health
  • Piyush Modak, Vice President of R&D and co-founder of EndoMedix
  • Debbie Chen, CEO and founder of Hydrostasis
  • Rachael Grimaldi, CEO and co-founder of CardMedic
  • Rachna Dhamija, CEO of Ejenta
  • Carolyn Treviño Jenkins, CEO and co-founder of We Are Here
  • Lyn Markey, CEO and co-founder of XTremedy
  • Camille O’Malley, CTO and co-founder of XTremedy
Last year, Joanna Nathan, CEO of Houston-based Prana Thoracic, won the top award for her company.
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Houston's Ion District to expand with new research and tech space, The Arc

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Houston's Ion District is set to expand with the addition of a nearly 200,000-square-foot research and technology facility, The Arc at the Ion District.

Rice Real Estate Company and Lincoln Property Company are expected to break ground on the state-of-the-art facility in Q2 2026 with a completion target set for Q1 2028, according to a news release.

Rice University, the new facility's lead tenant, will occupy almost 30,000 square feet of office and lab space in The Arc, which will share a plaza with the Ion and is intended to "extend the district’s success as a hub for innovative ideas and collaboration." Rice research at The Arc will focus on energy, artificial intelligence, data science, robotics and computational engineering, according to the release.

“The Arc will offer Rice the opportunity to deepen its commitment to fostering world-changing innovation by bringing our leading minds and breakthrough discoveries into direct engagement with Houston’s thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Rice President Reginald DesRoches said in the release. “Working side by side with industry experts and actual end users at the Ion District uniquely positions our faculty and students to form partnerships and collaborations that might not be possible elsewhere.”

Developers of the project are targeting LEED Gold certification by incorporating smart building automation and energy-saving features into The Arc's design. Tenants will have the opportunity to lease flexible floor plans ranging from 28,000 to 31,000 square feet with 15-foot-high ceilings. The property will also feature a gym, an amenity lounge, conference and meeting spaces, outdoor plazas, underground parking and on-site retail and dining.

Preleasing has begun for organizations interested in joining Rice in the building.

“The Arc at the Ion District will be more than a building—it will be a catalyst for the partnerships, innovations and discoveries that will define Houston’s future in science and technology,” Ken Jett, president of Rice Real Estate Company, added in the release. “By expanding our urban innovation ecosystem, The Arc will attract leading organizations and talent to Houston, further strengthening our city’s position as a hub for scientific and entrepreneurial progress.”

Intel Corp. and Rice University sign research access agreement

innovation access

Rice University’s Office of Technology Transfer has signed a subscription agreement with California-based Intel Corp., giving the global company access to Rice’s research portfolio and the opportunity to license select patented innovations.

“By partnering with Intel, we are creating opportunities for our research to make a tangible impact in the technology sector,” Patricia Stepp, assistant vice president for technology transfer, said in a news release.

Intel will pay Rice an annual subscription fee to secure the option to evaluate specified Rice-patented technologies, according to the agreement. If Intel chooses to exercise its option rights, it can obtain a license for each selected technology at a fee.

Rice has been a hub for innovation and technology with initiatives like the Rice Biotech Launch Pad, an accelerator focused on expediting the translation of the university’s health and medical technology; RBL LLC, a biotech venture studio in the Texas Medical Center’s Helix Park dedicated to commercializing lifesaving medical technologies from the Launch Pad; and Rice Nexus, an AI-focused "innovation factory" at the Ion.

The university has also inked partnerships with other tech giants in recent months. Rice's OpenStax, a provider of affordable instructional technologies and one of the world’s largest publishers of open educational resources, partnered with Microsoft this summer. Google Public Sector has also teamed up with Rice to launch the Rice AI Venture Accelerator, or RAVA.

“This agreement exemplifies Rice University’s dedication to fostering innovation and accelerating the commercialization of groundbreaking research,” Stepp added in the news release.

Houston team develops low-cost device to treat infants with life-threatening birth defect

infant innovation

A team of engineers and pediatric surgeons led by Rice University’s Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies has developed a cost-effective treatment for infants born with gastroschisis, a congenital condition in which intestines and other organs are developed outside of the body.

The condition can be life-threatening in economically disadvantaged regions without access to equipment.

The Rice-developed device, known as SimpleSilo, is “simple, low-cost and locally manufacturable,” according to the university. It consists of a saline bag, oxygen tubing and a commercially available heat sealer, while mimicking the function of commercial silo bags, which are used in high-income countries to protect exposed organs and gently return them into the abdominal cavity gradually.

Generally, a single-use bag can cost between $200 and $300. The alternatives that exist lack structure and require surgical sewing. This is where the SimpleSilo comes in.

“We focused on keeping the design as simple and functional as possible, while still being affordable,” Vanshika Jhonsa said in a news release. “Our hope is that health care providers around the world can adapt the SimpleSilo to their local supplies and specific needs.”

The study was published in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery, and Jhonsa, its first author, also won the 2023 American Pediatric Surgical Association Innovation Award for the project. She is a recent Rice alumna and is currently a medical student at UTHealth Houston.

Bindi Naik-Mathuria, a pediatric surgeon at UTMB Health, served as the corresponding author of the study. Rice undergraduates Shreya Jindal and Shriya Shah, along with Mary Seifu Tirfie, a current Rice360 Global Health Fellow, also worked on the project.

In laboratory tests, the device demonstrated a fluid leakage rate of just 0.02 milliliters per hour, which is comparable to commercial silo bags, and it withstood repeated disinfection while maintaining its structure. In a simulated in vitro test using cow intestines and a mock abdominal wall, SimpleSilo achieved a 50 percent reduction of the intestines into the simulated cavity over three days, also matching the performance of commercial silo bags. The team plans to conduct a formal clinical trial in East Africa.

“Gastroschisis has one of the biggest survival gaps from high-resource settings to low-resource settings, but it doesn’t have to be this way,” Meaghan Bond, lecturer and senior design engineer at Rice360, added in the news release. “We believe the SimpleSilo can help close the survival gap by making treatment accessible and affordable, even in resource-limited settings.”
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