MedTech Innovator Announces OncoRes Medical as 2019 Value Award Winner at WSGR Device Conference

Leading Startup Awarded $25,000 Global Prize for its Intraoperative Handheld Imaging Tools to Identify and More Effectively Remove Tumor in Patients with Breast Cancer

LOS ANGELES, June 24, 2019 – MedTech Innovator, the premier global nonprofit accelerator in the medical technology industry, today announced that OncoRes Medical, a medical device company developing an imaging tool to improve the outcome of breast cancer surgery, was selected as its 2019 Value Award winner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati’s 27th Annual Medical Device Conference.

OncoRes Medical is developing high resolution, handheld, surgeon-operated imaging tools to increase surgical accuracy and more effectively identify and remove tumors during surgery. The technology is designed to translate the surgeon’s sense of touch into a small, high-resolution image, enabling them to more effectively identify and remove tumors during surgery. By identifying tumor that may have previously been missed, OncoRes Medical’s technology could substantially improve patient outcomes in breast-conserving surgery. As the 2019 Value Award winner, OncoRes Medical will receive a $25,000 non-dilutive cash prize and a profile in an upcoming issue of the MedTech Strategist.

“We are honored to have been selected as MedTech Innovator’s 2019 Value Award winner, as well as the first-ever Australian company chosen to participate in the Accelerator program,” said Katharine Giles, MBBS, CEO and managing director of OncoRes Medical. “OncoRes is dedicated to actively improving health outcomes for women with breast cancer, and this award is a wonderful testament to the importance of our mission. With the support of MedTech Innovator’s program and tremendous ecosystem, we look forward to continuing this important work.”

Four startups from the MedTech Innovator Accelerator were selected for the Value Award competition and given the opportunity to present before a panel of industry judges and the audience of WSGR’s conference, with over 600 attendees. This year’s Value Award finalists – EndObetes, Forest Devices, ThermopeutiX and OncoRes Medical – each had seven minutes to present their products, business plans, and value propositions, and to answer the judges’ questions. The judges included Susan Morano, Vice President of Business Development of Johnson & Johnson Medical Device Companies; Stephen Ralph, Innovation Marketing Leader of W. L. Gore & Associates; Tomoko Ishikura, Business Development Advisor of Nipro Medical Corporation; and Jim Martucci, Sr. Director, Technology Assessment & Scouting of Baxter International.

“It’s our seventh year holding this competition at WSGR’s Medical Device Conference, and each year, the participating startups continue to impress us with their groundbreaking innovations that we diligently discover in ecosystems all across the globe,” said Paul Grand, CEO of MedTech Innovator. “It was terrific to see this audience of industry leaders recognize OncoRes’ powerful value proposition to significantly improve the lives of patients with breast cancer.”

Prior to the Value Award competition, MedTech Innovator hosted its annual exclusive Summit for this year’s Accelerator and Showcase companies, selected from a pool of over 800 applicants during a highly-competitive six-month process. These world-class 50 early to later-stage startups collaborated with MedTech Innovator’s 20 corporate partners to find solutions to common challenges and mechanisms to accelerate their technologies. They were joined by investors, providers, payers, and industry stakeholders such as representatives from federal agencies like National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). The first day of the Summit included MedTech Innovator’s workshops where the companies perfected their value propositions. This process was used to select the four companies who competed for the WSGR conference audience vote on June 21.

The Value Award competition is the first of three competitions in MedTech Innovator’s 2019 program. All 50 companies will continue to work with MedTech Innovator and its ecosystem over the next three months during the award-winning virtual accelerator program. The program culminates with the MedTech Innovator Showcase Sept. 23-25 in Boston at The MedTech Conference, powered by AdvaMed, with over 3,000 attendees. Four companies will be selected to compete for the live audience vote to determine the winner of the $350,000 grand prize and the title of 2019 MedTech Innovator. Additional awards will also be presented, including incubator spaces at JLABS, the Gore Innovation Center, and Magnify at UCLA. In total, more than $500,000 in cash prizes and incubator space will be awarded, and startups will receive exclusive access and mentorship by MedTech Innovator’s corporate sponsors.

Since 2013, MedTech Innovator has reviewed more than 3,000 startups and graduated 185 companies that have gone on to raise more than $1B in follow-on funding and bring 37 products to the market. MedTech Innovator’s founding sponsors are Johnson & Johnson and RCT Ventures. Annual program sponsors include Baxter, Amgen, NIPRO Medical Corp., Olympus Medical Systems Group, W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc., BTG, Fujikura Ltd., HOYA Corp., Maxim Integrated Ventures, Alira Health, EdgeOne Medical, Experien Group, Greenlight Guru, Proxima Clinical Research, Westwood & Wilshire, and Ximedica. The organization’s industry partners include AdvaMed, Health + Commerce, MedTech Strategist, and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

About MedTech Innovator

Based in Los Angeles, Calif., MedTech Innovator is the premier nonprofit startup accelerator in the medical technology industry. Its mission is to improve the lives of patients by accelerating the growth of companies that are transforming the healthcare system. MedTech Innovator matches healthcare industry leaders with innovative early-stage and emerging growth medtech companies for mentorship and support. For more information about MedTech Innovator, visit https://medtechinnovator.org/  and follow @MedTechAwards on Twitter. To receive industry insights and highlights about MedTech Innovator’s current and alumni participant companies, subscribe to its monthly newsletter.

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