Hamilton, Ontario – January 25, 2024 – Innovation Factory announces the finalists for the 2024 Synapse Competition, Ontario’s premier life science pitch competition. This annual event is a key part of Hamilton’s life science community and will award over $100,000 in cash and prizes to promising innovators in the field.

Since its inception in 2013, the Synapse Life Science Pitch Competition has seen over 115 companies participate, awarded more than $850K in prizes, where the companies have gone on to raise over $100M in funds and enter over 10 global markets. These achievements highlight the competition’s significant impact and interest in the growth of life science innovations.

The 15 finalists were selected from more than 60 applications and formed teams with post-secondary students, the industry’s future professionals. Together, these teams will participate in three months of intensive training, where they will produce business and commercialization plans for their ventures. The Synapse Competition culminates in a final pitch event on March 20, 2024, where three of the 15 companies will have the opportunity to present in front of a panel of judges and compete for their share of the prizes.

The Synapse Competition is more than just a competition, it’s a place for innovation, and collaboration in the life science community, and an opportunity for these companies to move towards transforming innovation in healthcare.

Meet the Finalists:

• Home Health Systems: Revolutionizing senior care with ‘SafetyPatch’, a real-time, 24/7 remote vital signs monitoring system, ensuring safety and peace of mind for both patients and care providers.
• D3RMIS Corp: Introducing a patent-pending wound dressing, ‘Product X’, uniquely formulated for optimal wound regeneration, offering ease of application, scarless healing, and cost-effectiveness.
• Fibra Inc: Unveiling a data-driven women’s health platform, combining smart underwear with an app, to deliver personalized reproductive health data, from fertility tracking to disease exposure alerts.
• Flutter Care Inc: Advancing perinatal care with a non-invasive wearable device for early detection of fetal distress, supported by a widely used ‘kick counting’ mobile application.
• Gene2Lead: Transforming drug discovery with AI-based computational pipelines, focusing on unmasking difficult drug targets and generating novel therapeutics.
• Hada Medtech: Improving the safety and efficiency of medical intubations with proprietary technology, aiming to reduce complications and physician burnout.
• Tech Medic: Streamlining patient education in healthcare with animated educational modules via an app, enhancing communication and reducing physician burnout.
• NerView Surgical Inc.: Revolutionizing surgery with ‘NerveSense’, a handheld imaging system for real-time nerve visualization, reducing post-operative complications.
• Neuro Spinal Innovation: Developing the ‘SONIK Monark 100’ for non-invasive, vibroacoustic therapy to treat chronic back pain, leveraging years of expertise and approval by Health Canada.
• NovaSonix Healthcare Inc.: Pioneering in musculoskeletal disease diagnosis with ‘NovaVue’, an advanced ultrasound technology providing comprehensive, non-invasive joint imaging.
• ORCHID Analytics: Offering AI-driven predictive analytics to manage healthcare’s biggest challenges, currently piloting a surgical scheduling optimization platform in Toronto.
• ParaSight Imaging Systems: Providing a low-cost, cloud-based diagnosis-as-a-service system with a proprietary microscope for rapid diagnoses of malaria and other diseases.
• Sensalog Inc.: Introducing a modular wearable system for comprehensive Parkinson’s disease management, enhancing patient care through detailed data collection.
• Venamic Medical: Developing a non-invasive hemodynamic monitoring system for heart failure patients in non-critical care settings, aiming to improve treatment and reduce hospital stays.
• Helixir Medical: Innovating in MR software with techniques for real-time 3D visualization of devices and tissues, targeting initial applications in ventricular tachycardia.

Innovation Factory

Innovation Factory is a not-for-profit business accelerator, serving as the catalyst for technology innovation in the greater Hamilton area since 2011. Innovation Factory provides business services, training, mentorship, and strategic connections to drive market adoption, leverage intellectual property, and increase revenues, investment, and jobs. Innovators can also access sector-specific resources including exclusive smart transportation test environments and data; and a formal life science and health innovation ecosystem.

www.innovationfactory.ca

Media Contact:

Annie Horton, Marketing Lead
Innovation Factory
[email protected]