MedTech Industry Strategic Interest Areas 2023

All device, diagnostic, and digital startups are encouraged to apply to MedTech Innovator at https://medtechinnovator.org/apply. Additionally, the following list highlights technologies identified as specifically of strategic interest via our medtech industry survey.

MEDICAL DEVICES

Disrupts an existing drug market with an unmet need

Applications: heart failure, COPD, peripheral artery disease, vascular disease, AFIB, structural heart conditions, ECMO

Interventional tools

Applications: radiology, pulmonology, vascular, neurovascular, stroke treatment

Minimally invasive surgical tools

Robotic tools for endoluminal surgeries: GI tract, vascular, biopsies, surgical oncology
Digital surgery
Energy (laparoscopic)
Cryoablation tools and techniques

Biocompatible materials

Promotes wound healing
MRI-compatible
3D printable
Anti-microbial
Applications: hernia repair, catheters

Endoscopy

Flexible modalities
Navigation
Energy
Applications: GI, pancreas, pulmonology, ENT

Innovative safety mechanisms

Renal/dialysis products
Injection, infusion, and transfusion devices
Needleless and safety connector systems

Automated cell culture equipment and systems

Stem cell growth systems
Serum-free culture
3D organ culture
Applications: cell therapy

Ophthalmic

AR / VR
Biosensors
IOL
Correction of visual access
Diagnostics
Modalities when central retina is destroyed

_____

CONSUMER HEALTHCARE

Patient education
Self-monitoring of biometric and health behavior parameters
Improved management of chronic diseases with severe comorbidities and predictive analytics
Non-drug pain management solutions
Patient empowerment tools for improved self-care

REMOTE PATIENT MONITORING AND CLINICAL STUDIES

Measure relevant biometric & behavior parameters

Risk prevention and mitigation for efficient care and timely intervention
Patient stratification / identifying populations
Patient status management: nutrition, fluids, etc.
Chronic disease management: heart failure, diabetes, obesity, metabolic diseases
Sensors, wearables, implantables
- Semiconductor-enabled
- Non-invasive or minimally invasive
- BP, ECG, hydration, sweat, temperature, fluid status, metabolites
- Application: opioid overdose, fluid monitoring

WORKFLOW OPTIMIZATION

Medication delivery, tracking & adherence
Telemedicine/teleconsultation
Hospital inventory management: asset tracking (e.g. RFID)

DIAGNOSTICS

With/without clinical decision support

Novel osteoporosis diagnostics
Diabetes mitigation & management
Rapid infectious diseases diagnostics
- Molecular diagnostics for virus/flu

IMAGING

Narrow-band imaging
Advanced imaging for GI

ADDITIONAL INTEREST AREAS

Infection prevention and treatment: surgery and orthopedics
Global health
Sleep apnea
Organ support
Biomarkers

BIOMEDICAL ADVANCED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

MedTech Innovator was selected by BARDA to accelerate the development and availability of transformative technologies and approaches to protect Americans from health security threats. If you know a company that matches the interests below, please encourage them to email barda@medtechinnovator.org and apply at https://www.drive.hhs.gov/partner.html?id=applyNow and reference MedTech Innovator as the source of the application.

SOLVING SEPSIS		ENACT
Sepsis is one of the country’s most urgent systemic health threats. Each year, more than 1.5 million people in the U.S. get sepsis. Sepsis kills a quarter-million Americans each year. Sepsis can occur when a trauma or an infection – often caused by a superbug or drug-resistant bacteria in the skin, lungs or kidney (urinary tract) – triggers a chain reaction throughout the body. Without timely recognition and treatment, it can rapidly cause tissue damage, organ failure, and death. One in three patients who die in a hospital have sepsis. Read more about sepsis. DRIVe is seeking bold solutions to solve sepsis. These include innovations focused on: Clinical management strategies supported by enhanced education and awareness Rapid diagnostics & prognostics Continuous multi-dimensional patient monitoring Machine learning-based disease management feedback algorithms Optimized therapeutic interventions	______	Too often, people do not receive adequate and timely treatment for infectious diseases like influenza. We either do not seek care, or do so many days late, leading to severe illness, and transmission of infectious agents within the household, at the workplace. Early Notification to Act, Control, and Treat (ENACT) will disrupt the traditional clinical care paradigm of healthcare outside of the home (within a physician’s office, urgent care center, or hospital). It will rapidly leverage the power of transformational technologies to empower individuals to be aware of their own health status and to take action. DRIVe seeks solutions that: Develop noninvasive wearable and on-demand physiological and biomarker detectors that monitor physiological changes from the user’s baseline Identify robust algorithms that analyze the resulting clinical data and detect health and illness signatures Develop software platforms capable of detection changes in individual and population-wide health status Identify the key markers of health status for enabling high-accuracy presymptomatic detection of infection

SOLVING SEPSIS

ENACT

Sepsis is one of the country’s most urgent systemic health threats. Each year, more than 1.5 million people in the U.S. get sepsis. Sepsis kills a quarter-million Americans each year. Sepsis can occur when a trauma or an infection – often caused by a superbug or drug-resistant bacteria in the skin, lungs or kidney (urinary tract) – triggers a chain reaction throughout the body. Without timely recognition and treatment, it can rapidly cause tissue damage, organ failure, and death. One in three patients who die in a hospital have sepsis. Read more about sepsis.

DRIVe is seeking bold solutions to solve sepsis. These include innovations focused on:

Clinical management strategies supported by enhanced education and awareness
Rapid diagnostics & prognostics
Continuous multi-dimensional patient monitoring
Machine learning-based disease management feedback algorithms
Optimized therapeutic interventions

______

Too often, people do not receive adequate and timely treatment for infectious diseases like influenza. We either do not seek care, or do so many days late, leading to severe illness, and transmission of infectious agents within the household, at the workplace. Early Notification to Act, Control, and Treat (ENACT) will disrupt the traditional clinical care paradigm of healthcare outside of the home (within a physician’s office, urgent care center, or hospital). It will rapidly leverage the power of transformational technologies to empower individuals to be aware of their own health status and to take action.

DRIVe seeks solutions that:

Develop noninvasive wearable and on-demand physiological and biomarker detectors that monitor physiological changes from the user’s baseline
Identify robust algorithms that analyze the resulting clinical data and detect health and illness signatures
Develop software platforms capable of detection changes in individual and population-wide health status
Identify the key markers of health status for enabling high-accuracy presymptomatic detection of infection

U.S. ARMY MEDICAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT COMMAND

MedTech Innovator is sourcing opportunities in partnership with US military. The following list highlights technologies identified as specifically of interest by the US Military for this event. If you know a company that matches any of these interest areas, then please encourage them to apply at https://medtechinnovator.org/apply.

MEDICAL SIMULATION (MEDSIM):
Direct retinal displays Volumetric holography – military medical use Neuro haptics & haptics technology Immersive holodeck & immersion teaching tools Robotic medical patient surrogates Tools to improve learning effectiveness, memory & retention, cognitive performance Empathy generators – live, virtual, augmented reality Nanosensors & communication 3D nanoprinting & novel inks Human-machine interface – medical focus
INFECTIOUS DISEASES:
Wearable technology to detect physiological or host biomarkers as predictive and prognostic indicators of infection-induced sepsis Safe and efficacious interventions to be utilized at the point of injury for eradication of bacterial pathogens from contaminated wounds and inhibition/disruption of biofilms formed by MDR pathogens. Examples of target wound-associated bacteria are: Acinetobacter baumannii, Staphylococcus aureus, E. coli, and Klebsiella pneumoniae A broad spectrum anti-viral that provides Warfighters durable immunity and protection from naturally occurring endemic infectious diseases
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN MEDICAL SCIENCES (AIMS):
Artificial intelligence for real-time medical command awareness in multi-domain operations
MEDICAL ASSIST SUPPORT TECHNOLOGIES (MAST):
Use of AI tools and techniques to automate medical documentation (EHR and other clinical information) Use of AI in clinical decision support to enable remote provision of care and for improved patient safety/monitoring
CLINICAL AND REHABILITATIVE MEDICINE:
Technology Objectives: The Clinical and Rehabilitative Medicine Research Program has identified a need for regenerative medicine prototype development efforts and manufacturing technologies. Current Good manufacturing practice (cGMP) quality is a requirement by the FDA and European Medicines Agency to provide patients with clinical-grade products that are safe and have defined quality characteristics. However, standardization and robust manufacturing techniques are lacking in regenerative medicine, which will continue to impede progress in advancing regenerative medicine based technologies and treatments toward the clinic. This is likely due to many factors which need to be developed and advanced, including 1) Processing technologies for Quality Management of acellular matrices or Stem Cell (SC)-derived cell based therapies. 2) Manufactured Universal Acellular Matrix 2) Innovative Manufacturing Process for SC-Derived Cell Based Therapies. Based on this, the major objective of this effort is to develop solutions for quality management of prototypes and processes for cell, tissue, or organ bioengineering technologies that will overcome current challenges and enable successful cGMP manufacturing and clinical translation of regenerative medicine based therapies. Technologies of interest include the following: Processing technologies for quality assurance of acellular matrices or SC-derived cell based therapies (assurance, control, or quality testing) Manufactured universal acellular matrix Innovative manufacturing process for stem cell (SC)-derived cell based therapies
MILITARY OPERATIONAL MEDICINE:
Wearable, on-demand device for the management of symptoms associated with PTSD that is efficacious in a military or veteran population Guidelines on the implementation of human-automation teaming that optimizes human performance and increases operational effectiveness Injury risk model for the brain and spine when the whole body is subjected to potentially hazardous acceleration/deceleration loads from military relevant exposures Brain injury risk model, test methodology, and assessment tool that can output probability of brain injury risk resulting from single and repetitive blast exposures Medically-based performance requirements that can provide behind helmet blunt trauma survivability and brain injury risk curves for helmets exposed to current and emerging ballistic threats Whole body blast injury criteria to evaluate the next generation bomb suit and body armor blast personal protection equipment An efficient and effective method for personalized training to build and enhance cognitive/brain health, performance and psychological health Individual training modalities and thermal models that reduce cold-weather injuries and improve cold weather performance Models that quantify impacts of glymphatic/lymphatic clearance in the brain on short-term impacts on the restorative effects of sleep
OTHER:
Limitation of burn conversion and burn treatments Non-compressible hemorrhage Supplemental and therapeutic oxygen