Five finalists have been named in the annual “Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids” competition presented by the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI) https://innovate4kids.org.
The competition as part of the Pediatric Device Innovation Symposium was co-located with the MedTech Conference. NCC-PDI is one of five consortia in FDA’s Pediatric Device Consortia Grant Program created to support the development and commercialization of medical devices for children, which lags significantly behind the progress of adult medical devices.
Innovations in pediatric technologies were presented to address unmet medical needs for children. “Addressing the unmet needs across pediatric populations is critical to advancing children’s health and we are delighted to work with pioneering companies seeking to bridge this care gap” said Kolaleh Eskandanian, PhD, Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Children’s National Hospital and PI for NCC-PDI.
The following five pediatric device innovations were selected for the final competition:
- Corinnoya-Minimally invasive biventricular non-blood contacting cardiac assist device to treat heart failure
- Innovation Lab-Mechanical elbow brace stabilizes tremors for pediatric ataxic cerebral palsy to improve the performance of Activities of Daily Living (ADL)
- Prapela-The Prapela incubator pad improves the treatment of apnea
- Tympanogen- Developed Perf-Fix to replace surgical eardrum repair with a nonsurgical clinic procedure
- Xpan-Xpan’s Trocar enables safe and dynamic access and effortless upsizing when doing conventional mini robotic procedures
The five finalists will have access to a pediatric accelerator program led by MedTech Innovator https://medtechinnovator.org and will compete for a share of $150,00 in grant funding from FDA in the final virtual pitch event in October 2022.
The Sheik Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at the Childrens National Hospital System and, and the A. James Clark at the School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, received the grant funding to form the NCC-PDI with support from partners MedTech Innovator and Archimedic.