The third annual Medical Capital Innovation Competition will be held at the Global Center for Health Innovation in Cleveland, April 17-18, 2019. The theme for the competition, “AR/VR/XR: The New Reality of Healthcare,” provides participants a platform to address how augmented reality, virtual reality and cross reality technologies will engage patients and clinicians and take healthcare to new levels. The competition will award a total of $100,000 plus mentoring and co-development opportunities to global AR/VR/XR startups in professional and collegiate divisions. Applications are accepted Jan. 14 through March 15, 2019.
“Augmented and virtual reality are already revolutionizing IT, education, retail, marketing and other sectors, and healthcare is becoming the next great frontier of these technologies,” says Aram Nerpouni, president and CEO of BioEnterprise. “The Medical Capital Innovation Competition will give AR, VR and XR healthcare startups access to resources that will help them innovate in ways that improve patient care and patient experience.”
The Medical Capital Innovation Competition, presented by Cleveland-based accelerator BioEnterprise, is an annual two-day business plan pitch competition that gives participating teams the opportunity to demo their technologies and make their best pitch to an expert panel of judges. Ideas will be judged by industry experts using specific criteria, including, but not limited to, commercial and technical viability and the strength of the team.
According to PitchBook, the national deal count for AR and VR companies in 2017 reached nearly 650, and while healthcare accounts for a small portion of that figure, its share of deal flow is on the rise. Over the last decade, there have been nearly 140 AR/VR/XR deals in healthcare, totaling nearly $5 billion in capital invested. The majority of such deals have happened in the last five years; total deals in healthcare AR/VR/XR have increased nearly 1,000% over that time. Current healthcare-related applications of AR and VR can be found in treatment of mental health conditions such as PTSD, anxiety, phobias and dementia; surgical training and guidance; pain management; patient education; and digital diagnostics.
The Medical Capital Innovation Competition draws teams from around the world every year; in fact, in 2018 alone, the event drew 180 applicant teams from 24 countries and 33 states. Past collegiate teams have hailed from Case Western Reserve University, Johns Hopkins University and Carnegie Mellon University. Judges for the 2019 MCIC include:
Anil Jain, M.D., VP and Chief Health Informatics Officer, IBM Watson Health
Srinivasan Suresh, M.D., Chief Medical Information Officer, UPMC
Sonja O’Malley, Senior Director Commercialization, Cleveland Clinic Innovations
Jeffrey Reis, Vice President, Fund Management, Healthbox
BioEnterprise receives support for the Medical Capital Innovation Competition from Cuyahoga County, JumpStart, HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) and the Global Center for Health Innovation. Healthcare partners include Cleveland Clinic Innovations, University Hospitals, The MetroHealth System and ProMedica. Supporting sponsors include Case Western Reserve University and Develoco.
For more information and to apply: mcic.bioenterprise.com.
About BioEnterprise
BioEnterprise is a business formation, recruitment, and acceleration effort designed to grow the Northeast Ohio healthcare industry. Located in Cleveland, at the Global Center for Health Innovation and in University Circle, BioEnterprise provides management counsel and support services to health IT, medical device, and biopharmaceutical companies. In addition, BioEnterprise convenes and leads strategy for industry-building initiatives such as The Medical Capital, HIT in the CLE, and the Global Center for Health Innovation. BioEnterprise founders are Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Clinic, and University Hospitals. Additional technology partners include the NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland State University and BioOhio. Since 2002, BioEnterprise and its partners have created, recruited and accelerated more than 350 health IT, medical device, and biopharmaceutical companies, and have helped these companies raise more than $2 billion in new funding. To learn more: BioEnterprise.com.