OmiX Labs is the winner with a hand-held portable device for vector-borne infection diagnosis and prognosis, and xBiTS is the runner-up with a table-top diagnostic device for faster and accurate detection of UTIs
Unitus Seed Fund announced the results of its India StartHealth Competition. OmiX Labs emerged the winner for the invention of a hand-held portable device for vector-borne infection diagnosis and prognosis that is targeting to reduce the time and cost to detect infectious disease pathogens. Reportedly, the device could be deployed to the more than one lakh (100,000) diagnostics labs across India.
“OmiX Labs has a great team and collaborators needed for the success of the project. Early stage disease detection in India is still at a very nascent stage and this product has the potential to be a new standard of care for infectious disease detection,” said A Vijarajan, Founder and CTO at InnAccel and a StartHealth jury member.“
Omix will receive a prize of Rs 10 lakhs and an opportunity to pitch for participating in Unitus’ StartHealth investment Program that includes up to Rs 50 lakhs of additional non-dilutive funding, an investment of up to Rs one crore from Unitus Seed Fund and go-to-market support from StartHealth partners Narayana Health, Manipal Hospitals, PATH, Pfizer and Unitus Seed Fund.
xBiTS was declared the runner-up for developing a table-top diagnostic device for faster and accurate detection of urinary tract infections (UTIs). The device can provide results as accurate as the high-end microbiology devices and do so in under four hours. Similar to OmiX, the xBITS’s team is also working on solving the drug resistance problem by separating out and detecting specific pathogen species.
“Very impressed to see a near commercial solution coming out of a University,” said one of the jury members, K Chandrasekhar, Founder & CEO at Forus Health. xBiTS will soon be pitching for entry to Unitus’ StartHealth investment Program with potential for additional funding and support from the StartHealth partner network.
The competition received 130 applications, of which 10 health-tech start-ups participated in the final online pitches to an industry jury. The companies were assessed on several factors including the depth of innovation, business model, market feasibilty, leadership and impact.
StartHealth Competition’s other finalists included:
- Nayam Innovations: Developing a Novel Intra Ocular Lens (IOL) implant for spectacle-free vision after cataract surgery
- Aindra Systems: Building an Affordable and portable, ‘point-of-sample-collection’ cervical cancer screening system that utilises pap testing
- Chikitsak: Building a bluetooth-enabled device that screens the vitals of subjects in remote area
- Cooey Tech: Connected smart devices that logs the medical records of the patients and helps connect to doctors
- Excocan Healthcare: Creating oncotechnology platform to deliver cancer diagnosis and imaging
- Matrikas Inc: Sensor-based kit for diagnosis of cervical cancer, HIV/AIDS and infections affecting women’s reproductive tract
- Pravarthan Technologies: Providing high-quality healthcare for the masses including micro-wireless ECG devices and cloud platform for remote specialist consultancy services
- Lifesense Medical Systems: Indigenously developed ECG monitoring device that can be installed at zero cost and charged on a per-patient basis