Social Alpha and Tata Trusts–PATH Impact Lab, announced the winners of India’s first nationwide search – ‘Social Alpha Quest for Healthcare Innovations 2018’.  The winners were selected from more than 100 applicants, who were screened for their unique technology and execution model, market strategy, readiness for clinical validation, viability and health impact among others.

Among the winning solutions include devices for early cancer detection, affordable TB diagnosis, a monitoring and prognosis of ailments for new-borns, world’s first dual powered defibrillator, and a credit card sized device for UTI detection among others.

A total of 26 applicants presented to a panel of experts. While all the winners will receive technical and peer support, five among them have qualified to receive grants for clinical validation.

Social Alpha Quest for Healthcare Innovations program is an intensive 12 - 15 months program where the cohort will receive comprehensive support from Social Alpha and Tata Trusts–PATH Impact Lab to scale their innovations to the next stage of product development.

Social Alpha and Tata Trusts–PATH Impact Lab will provide mentoring support across product design, clinical validation, regulatory and go-to market strategies. The winners will also be provided design readiness and safety testing support. The selected candidates will get an opportunity to participate in launch-pad programs, receive mentorship from global and local experts from diverse organisations and fields in addition to boot camps in specialised areas. One-to-one mentoring sessions on product design, clinical validation as well as learning visits to PATH’s Impact Lab in Seattle and other innovation labs will be arranged for the selected innovators to meet investors, lawyers and collaborators.

The 10 winning innovations are:

Valetude Primus Healthcare: Valetude has developed an add-on device for existing microscopes that helps in florescence based TB detection, which also aligns with WHO guidelines. This can be deployed in low resource settings to increase availability of accurate TB diagnosis.

Sensivision Health Technologies: Sensivision has developed a patented and first-of-its-kind integrated device to predict, monitor and treat Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy in new-borns. It is a servo-controlled device that treats through a mechanism called Whole Body Cooling while using Amplitude Integrated EEG for monitoring and prognosis.

Jeevtronics: Their mission is to deploy globally the world’s most reliable defibrillator, which works even in areas without electricity. They have developed the world’s first dual powered (grid electricity+ hand cranked generator powered) defibrillator that can help in revival from sudden cardiac arrest.

Periwinkle Technologies: They have developed a device called Smart ScopeTM which enables single-visit screening of cervical pre-cancer to facilitate early detection of high risk infections to enable timely treatment.

Yostra Labs:  Yostra Labs have developed an affordable medical device called Kadam for the treatment of Diabetic Foot Ulcers to help the section of the population who cannot afford an expensive treatment.

Crimson Health: They are developing a radically new ostomy management device – SphinX, to enable continence for colostomates and ileostomates. A soft and pliable insertable port, SphinX provides a safe, secure and discreet solution to stoma management while restoring continence to the patient.

Module Innovations: Module is developing USense, which is a credit card sized device that can detect the presence of four major bacteria that cause Urinary Tract Infections (UTI). Result readout in USense is colorimetric, the test does not require any laboratory or instrumentation, trained manpower or electricity.

Bioscan Research: Bioscan Research has developed a handy, non-invasive, fully computerized system for detecting intracranial haemorrhage in two minutes.

Alfaleus Technology Pvt. Ltd: Alfaleus have designed and developed a portable visual field perimeter that can be operated via a smartphone to perform an eye examination for glaucoma.

Shira Medtech: Shira’s microvascular clamps make anastomosis easier and faster than the traditional technique at an affordable price, enabling surgeons from all disciplines to perform microsurgery even away from large cities, in the vicinity of patients’ homes and at sites of accidents.

Commenting on announcement, Manoj Kumar, CEO, Social Alpha & Head of Entrepreneurship, Innovations & Institutions, Tata Trusts, said, “We believe that Science and Technology innovations have the potential to solve the challenges of affordability, accessibility and quality in healthcare delivery. We are proud to announce the winners of the first edition of Social Alpha Quest for Healthcare Innovations. Along with our partner PATH, we hope to address some of the most critical healthcare challenges that our country faces today and impact millions of lives.”

Satya Dash, Director, Global Innovations Impact Lab, PATH, said, “The program leverages the expansive strengths of PATH, Social Alpha and partners to intensively support  medtech start-ups through critical stages of clinical validation and design for manufacturing such that they can be scaled rapidly  to create health impact.”

Tata Trusts–PATH Impact Lab is an initiative launched to address critical healthcare challenges in India by enabling and accelerating healthcare innovations towards market entry, adoption and scale to create a transformative health impact.