The Texas Medical Center's innovation arm welcomed seven companies to its 2022 health tech accelerator program bootcamp.

TMC Innovation Accelerator for HealthTech is aimed at supporting early-stage life science startups through fundraising, connecting with mentors and potential customers, and more.

“Healthtech startups who connect with our network will emerge more prepared to access their customers and grow into their markets," says Emily Reiser, associate director of TMC Innovation, in a news release. "Our advisors, members, and partners unlock insights for these entrepreneurs about how to more effectively build a strategic plan for improved market access and adoption. Bootcamp ignites these connections, providing immediate value to entrepreneurs and enabling our team to define a long term plan for continued collaboration."

If selected following the bootcamp, founders will spend six months at TMCi with strategic mentorship, clinical validation, and other customized milestone development from the organization.

“Bootcamp is an intensive period of discovery and mutual selection," says Devin Dunn, head of the Accelerator for HealthTech, in the release. "Founders get a chance better understand everything that TMCi brings to bear and our team has the opportunity to select those growing companies that will add significant value to our community.”

The bootcamp focused on several innovation areas — including surgical devices, access to care, robotics, and hospital efficiency. The participating companies include:

• CardMedic, headquartered in Oxford, United Kingdom, aims to improve communication between staff and patients across any barrier-language, deafness, cognitive impairment or disability-with an A to Z library of pre-written scripts replicating common clinical conversations.
• Chicago-baseed CareAdvisors is connecting health plans, hospitals, and community-based organizations to streamline high risk case management and quickly close the loop on care.
• Endolumik, founded in Morgantown, West Virginia, has developed a fluorescence-guided device that uses near-infrared light to enhance visualization for safer, faster, and more consistent bariatric surgery.
• Orcha, based in Daresbury, United Kingdom, rigorously reviews apps to help systems, clinicians, patients, or consumers find their way to the best health-related apps.
• Austin-based Roboligent has created a rehabilitation robot, the Optimo Regen, that provides evidence-based therapeutic interventions for upper and lower limbs.
• Boston-founded ScienceIO's platform transforms unstructured text into structured records in real-time. The company's core product is a HIPAA-compliant API for real-time text processing and analytics.
• Semantic Health, founded in Toronto, Canada, uses artificial intelligence to complete secondary reviews of all coded and claims data to optimize revenue cycle management.

"Having a product that the market truly needs is critical but not enough," says Bongsu Kim, founder and CEO of Roboligent, in the release. "Especially for the medical device market, I realize that introducing a new product is a thorough and collaborative effort from a variety of stakeholders and experts. Without knowing the mechanism and the right connection, it seems almost impossible to get into the market. The TMC Innovation Accelerator is the perfect place to make it happen."