A team working on prolonging the lifespan of transplant organs took home the top prize in the 9th annual Hollomon Health Innovation Challenge at the University of Washington.
BioLegacy, made up of Seattle University and UW finance, mechanical engineering, and chemistry students, was awarded the $15,000 WRF Capital Grand Prize for its organ cryopreservation and rewarming innovation.
The team was one of 22 that competed in this year’s final round of competition at the UW Foster School’s Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship. The challenge attracted a record-breaking 53 applicants from student teams across the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia.
The competition gives students the chance to make connections and win funding that could help develop their school projects into startups. Ideas are pitched to 100 judges representing the health, biotech, investor, and entrepreneurial communities.
Other prize winners included:
$10,000 Herbert B. Jones Foundation Second Place Prize
- Revyn Medical Technologies, from the University of Victoria in British Columbia. Biomedical engineering, engineering and computer science students are developing an improved speculum for gynecological care.
$5,000 Acclara Third Place Prize
- Piezo-Pulse from the UW. Applied bioengineering master’s students are developing an implantable “energy harvester” to dramatically extend the battery life for leadless pacemakers. The team also received the $2,500 Fenwick & West Best Idea for a Medical Device Prize, which recognizes a medical device concept (for a physical product) with the most promising opportunity to significantly improve the lives of patients or providers.
$2,500 Kent & Lisa Sacia Best Idea in Digital Health Prize
- CarePath from the UW. The team of Foster Executive MBA students is developing a wayfinding product that aims to make hospital campuses safer and smarter. CarePath’s scalable software solution allows clinicians and patients to have easy access to turn-by-turn directions during a wide-range of care situations.
$2,500 Jim & Timmie Hollomon Best Idea for Patient Safety Prize
- ShockSafe from the UW. Mechanical engineering and chemical engineering students developed an AED weight-detection accessory to distinguish between pediatric and adult patients during cardiac arrest emergencies.
$2,500 Population Health Initiative Best Idea for Addressing Health Access and Disparities Prize
- ReviveHer from the UW. The group of biochemistry students is developing a cutting-edge, universal attachment for training mannequins that addresses the gender disparities in CPR outcomes.
$1,000 Connie Bourassa-Shaw Spark Award
- ACT-NIRS from the UW. Bioengineering master’s students are developing a probe that detects brain tissue oxygenation and helps prevent severe neurological issues in critically ill pre-term infants. The award recognizes teams that, in the eyes of the judges, just missed out on one of the top three awards.
The competition provided more than $41,000 in prizes.
Last year’s grand prize winner was Endozene, a UW team developing a potential test for endometriosis.
Startups that have emerged from previous Hollomon competitions include Seattle biotech company A-Alpha Bio, which won first prize in 2018 and raised $20 million three years later, and 2019 first prize winner Nanodropper, which raised $1.4 million. Spira took home third place in 2020 and was acquired the following year by New York-based healthcare company Galileo for its software tool to enhance patient screening.
