Health tech
TMCx announces its next medical device cohort with 5 startups hailing from Houston
The Texas Medical Center's startup accelerator, TMCx, has added 19 companies from all around the world to join its medical device family.
The TMC Innovation Institute team narrowed down 140 applications to 40 for the second round of the process, which includes face-to-face interviews, according to a release. After those, 18 companies were selected to join the TMCx09 class, which focuses on medical devices. The last cohort, which specialized in digital health, concluded on June 6.
Out of the 18 companies, five are from Houston. Four other startups hail from other corners of the United States, while 10 international companies also made the cohort. The program commences on August 5, and will run for four months before concluding in a demo day event in November.
Here are the medical device startup companies joining the TMCx09 cohort.
See update at the bottom of this story.
Vascular devices
- Neurescue (Copenhagen, Denmark) — Neurescue has developed a computer-aided aortic occlusion catheter to help save the lives of patients in the emergency care setting.
- Venari Medical (Galway, Ireland) — Venari Medical is developing BioVena — a medical device that treats varicose veins and venous leg ulcers with a minimally invasive approach intended to reduce pain.
- Obsidio (Solana Beach, California) — Obsidio is developing a universal gel embolic material to shrink lesions or to treat internal bleeds, aneurysms and vascular malformations.
Novel therapies
- PATH EX (Houston) — PATH EX is developing an extracorporeal blood cleansing device designed to selectively remove pathogens, including multi-drug resistant bacteria, and endotoxins from circulating blood to diagnose and treat sepsis.
- Innosphere (Hafia, Israel) — Innosphere is a medical device company developing brain stimulation solutions for treating cognitive disorders, with a focus on ADHD.
Rehab
- AbiliTech (St. Paul, Minnesota) — AbiliTech is restoring independence to patients with upper limb neuromuscular conditions by offering a wearable assistive device that allows the user to perform independent activities of daily living.
- Komodo OpenLab (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) — Komodo OpenLab has developed Tecla, an assistive device giving individuals with physical disabilities the ability to communicate, control, and connect with the world.
Surgery
- CNX Medical (Houston) — CNX Medical is developing a transcutaneous neurostimulator that is placed in the ear and helps reduce inflammation after abdominal surgery, with a focus on post-operative ileus.
- CorInnova (Houston) — CorInnova has developed a soft robotic non-blood contacting biventricular cardiac assist device for the treatment of heart failure that would eliminate the many adverse events associated with current technologies.
- Ictero Medical (Houston) — Ictero Medical is developing a minimally invasive ablation solution to treat high-risk patients with gallstone disease and offer patients the benefits of surgery without the risk. The company was among the big winners at the Texas A&M New Ventures Competition.
Diagnostics
- Artidis (Basel, Switzerland) — InArtidis has developed a nanomechanical biomarker technology using precise tissue measurement in combination with data analytics to personalize cancer diagnosis.
- Inveox (Munich, Germany) — Inveox automates the pre-analytical process in cancer diagnosis to improve patient safety and lab efficiency.
- Cambridge Respiratory Innovations Ltd. (Cambridge, United Kingdom) — CRiL has developed, N-Tidal, a device that analyzes CO2 end-tidal breathing to improve respiration monitoring.
Toward home health
- Kegg (San Francisco) — Kegg is on a mission to simplify every woman's journey towards taking charge of her fertility with a user-friendly monitoring device.
- TestCard (London) — TestCard is a flat pack urine test kit that functions in combination with a mobile phone application, turning a phone's camera into a clinical grade scanner.
- Patch'd (New South Wales, Australia, and San Francisco) — Patch'd uses deep learning and wearable devices to predict the onset of sepsis in the at-home patient.
Transplant
- Volumetric (Houston) — Volumetric's 3D bioprinting platform creates materials with living cells with applications in biomaterials, cancer research, and eventually human organ replacements. The company's technology started out of Rice University.
- Tevosol (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) — Tevasol is developing organ transplant transportation solutions. Their portable warm perfusion machines will help surgeons transplant more organs today and solve organ shortage tomorrow.
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Diagnostic Photonics withdrew from the program after the article published.