Category: MedTech Actuator Origin

Meet the 29 impressive teams from across Australia selected for the MedTech Actuator Origin 2022. 

Over three days in Melbourne, emerging founders will dive into workshops and industry-led mentoring to help them turbocharge projects and build a strategy to get their ideas to market. The Origin cohort will be joined by the impressive 2022 MedTech Actuator Menzies Scholars. During the sprint, teams will be introduced to topics such as idea validation, intellectual property, pitching, pathways to market, business models, navigating Australia’s healthcare ecosystem, and funding for early-stage ventures.

Ten projects from Australia will be selected to pitch at the Origin Semi-final, along with three Semi-finalist teams from Japan, to secure their place in the Origin Final at the MedTech Actuator Showcase in December.

The Origin 2022 participants include clinicians, researchers, and students working on MedTech, HealthTech and BioTech innovations that will improve the lives of patients and impact clinicians’ workflows. These solutions span key areas in human health, including dental, oncology, IVF, mental health, cardiology, allied health and more.

Welcome to our Origin 2022 participants

We are excited to announce the 29 teams participating in the MedTech Actuator Origin intensive sprint and competing in the Rapid Fire Round. 

1. 2Hip4U | Kate Gallagher | Designing custom-made clothing that is practical and comfortable for babies with hip dysplasia.

2. AcuDent | Liam Murray, Aaron Binns, Anna Dai, Ashwin Ho, Ivy Weng| Developing a medical device to revolutionise the detection of severe gum disease.

3. AdraCard| Liam Mahony, Lachlan Timms | Creating an alternative to the EpiPen that eliminates the burden of carrying your adrenaline.

4. C-arm Angio Screens patient positioning| Tim Stewart | Developing patient positioning devices for intraop use in the Cath Lab and Radiology.

5. Ello Medical | Maria Borsaru, Daniel Malkinson, Kai Van Lieshout, Jeremy Yeh | A centralised directory for hospital staff to reach available clinicians.

6. Innova IVF | Dr Fabrizzio Horta, Dr Victor Cadarso, Prof Adrian Neild, Prof Beverley Vollenhoven, A/Prof Sally Catt | Simple, affordable chip technology to measure the energy of embryos in real time for IVF treatments.

7. La Petite Médicale | Rochelle De Silva, Laura Harman | Preventing extravasation injuries in pediatric patients through monitoring of cannula position.

8. Frame Health | Melinda Wassell, Marcus Yeo | Efficient, compliant and helpful note-taking software for great clinical outcomes in allied health.

9. Hormoneo | Hope Newman, Olivia Voulgaris | Developing a continuous hormone monitoring device to boost IVF success.

10. TENSible | Sean James Dominique, Victoria Shi, Gwyneth Chua, Akanksha Agarwal, Josephine Wong | A non-invasive electrical stimulation device that offers personalised chronic back pain relief.

11. LYF: Leveraging In Vitro Gametogenesis (IVG)| Jenna Hall | Helping people start families on a timeline best suited to them using stem cell technology.

12. Sensure Medical |Brandon Qilin Chen, Aaron Khoo, Daniel Bertone, Michael Qu, Sophia Hsiang | A novel way to improve safety and accuracy of injections through tip localisation.

13. Noodles Medical| Christopher Ong Yean Hong, Cindy Millenia Hidajat, Robert Jenny, Rochelle De Silva, Simone Di Bisceglie | A self-use device to treat and monitor chronic pelvic pain associated with the high-tone pelvic floor.

14. Acegirl |Desiree D’Cruz | Empowering women to thrive at motherhood and life by creating discreet wearable breast pumps.

15. SenSur | Fateme Akhlaghi Bagherjeri | Creating a non-invasive point-of-care multi-marker biosensor as a cardiac diagnostic tool.

16. Vertere | Urwah Nawaz, Kate Leone, Jacky Cai, Vishal Uppal, Sharjeel Nawaz | An all-integrative lateral rotation mattress combined with machine learning automated prevention of pressure sore development. We are building a low-cost disability friendly mattress that provides PwD autonomy over their sleep

17. EnVi | Amin Abbas | Endometriosis imaging using ultrasound with inbuilt guidance and 3D reconstruction

18. OncoSure | Benjamin Arya, Oliver Cucanic | Detecting cancer early. In the comfort of your own home.

19. Living Lateral Australia | Anita Nikora | It is self-operated & raises a patient from lying on their back to seated on the side of their bed.

20. Tupointo Health – The Helping Hand |Julian Bianco, Mark Perrott, Maggie Lam., Robert Tran, Shehan Wisidagama | Safe patient rolling and holding device for nurses to reduce workplace manual handling injuries.

21. Aware Care Baby |Clive Kaicer, Jenny Kirschner, Sarah Hunstead, Robert Wise, Jon Seddon | To help parents make informed decisions about their baby’s safety in prams on hot days

22. DocuMed | Andrew Xu, Gary Chen, Geetika Gupta, Jacky Chen, Sebastian Mensink, Sreshta Sheri | Enables doctors to remind patients of key information from outpatient consultations

23. Smartheal | Santosh Kaur | SmartHeal allows you to replace paper rulers and dipsticks for wound measurement.

24. EMR-AI | Taser Zoubi | Leveraging electronic medical records to improve the lives of Australians through the early detection of Osteoporosis.

25. Kali Healthcare | Emerson Keenan | A digital health platform for pregnancy monitoring to provide better access to care

26. Shrinker | Omar Ibrahim | Solving the problem any therapy seeker faces, not knowing if their prospective therapist will be a good personal match/fit, through Artificial Intelligence, genetics, and neuroscience

27. VR for remote mental healthcare support | Shiva Pedram | Provision of mental healthcare through applications of VR for members of remote communities.

28. Ophthalmoscope | Jacob Cook |  Patient-empowered retina analysis

29. A-Eye | Mojtaba Golzan | A-Eye is a disruptive technology platform that detects signs of abnormal brain pressure through a simple eye scan

What is next?

The experience culminates in the MedTech Actuator Origin Semi-Finals on 27th October where teams will compete for a place in the MedTech Actuator Showcase. At the Showcase, teams will have the chance to win a share of the $10K prize pool, over $5k worth of in-kind support and gain access to fast-tracked entry into MedTech Actuator Accelerator 2023.

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MedTech Actuator Origin is supported by LaunchVic and the REDI Initiative, powered by MTPConnect. 

Vause Medical is making lumbar punctures more accurate and accessible in newborns. Using machine learning and medical imaging, the team are creating LumVi – a guidance system that will help clinicians choose the best point to insert needles during lumbar punctures, increasing accuracy and efficiency of care. This will allow more children to have access to this crucial procedure and medical care, no matter where they are.

Vause Medical’s Origin story

Mara Quach, Shelby Holland, and Michelle Callow, founders of Vause Medical, came together while undertaking the University of Melbourne’s BioDesign Innovation course in 2021. After talking with clinicians, the team identified the recurrent problem of finding accurate puncture points, prevalent across paediatrics and general medical practices. When a newborn is brought to an emergency room with a fever or seizures, chances are they will need to get a test for meningitis, which includes a lumbar puncture where a long needle is inserted into their back. This critical procedure is not only painful, but also difficult to perform on small children, particularly in rural areas with the added costs of equipment, wages, manual labour, and a need for an extra specialist to perform the imaging. With a device like Lumvi, the team aims to streamline lumbar punctures with medical imaging to identify puncture points, taking the guesswork out of difficulty in meningitis diagnoses.

Motivation to improve healthcare accessibility

Healthcare disparities in the team’s respective home countries impacted them directly and drove them to come together to try and create a solution that removes barriers to accessing healthcare. 

For Shelby Holland, financial barriers to healthcare are the motivator: 

“As a US citizen, I don’t have access to health insurance as it’s a huge cost for me. Back in 2019 when I went home to visit my family over Christmas, I didn’t have health insurance. I had to go to the hospital for an anaphylactic reaction and I am still paying off those medical bills. There are countless times in my life when I’ve had to make the decision between using my EpiPen and going to the hospital and incurring the costs after,” Shelby Holland.

For Mara Quach, her personal motivation comes from her experience in Vietnam where healthcare resources are limited. 

“When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time in hospitals as my mother was really sick. The question to me was how do you distribute a limited amount of resources to 90 million citizens in a country? Experiencing illness and seeing cancer patients not getting access to treatments motivated me to try to make healthcare accessible and adequate for all,” Mara Quach.

After spending significant time working in the pharmaceutical industry, Michelle Callow is inspired to address the biases in healthcare.

“I’m very conscious of inequities in health globally. In my current role in the pharmaceutical industry, I see the impact that innovation could have on patient outcomes and equally in remote areas. I am driven by the impact that innovation can have not only on addressing problems in accessing resources but also on the patient and their families,” Michelle Callow.

Their strong support network consisting of the MedTech Actuator, BioDesign Innovation leaders and other startups is driving the team to bring this product to market. 

“We want to make our idea work as we want people to live happier, healthier lives and want to make an impact on newborns and their families”.

The MedTech Actuator Origin experience

Before applying to the MedTech Actuator Origin, Vause Medical was undertaking BioDesign Innovation at the University of Melbourne. Having completed the concept designs and early-stage clinical validation, the next step was to develop a prototype and build their network. 

“We knew that Origin was a well-respected competition to test out your idea and see what people think about it. So we applied for the program as it ended up being a safe learning environment to validate our theories, pressure test our concept and gain feedback from people that were valuable”, Vause Medical team.

As Vause Medical progressed, they learned innovative ways to design and test the solution to get closer to a prototype and minimum viable product. Other challenges have been finding stakeholders, such as clinicians, to assist with product development and further validation. 

The team utilised the mentoring opportunities in Origin to rework the initial LumVi designs and deepen their connections with the ecosystem. The team also engaged with regulatory consultants, who helped to craft a clear vision of what a LumVi would look like in clinical settings and how this would inform the subsequent regulatory pathway. From here, the team were able to pivot and refine their product strategy and better address a variety of benefits to different stakeholders. 

Don’t try to reinvent the wheel

During ideation, Vause Medical received key advice from mentors early on – don’t try to reinvent the wheel – and this has become their north star. For emerging teams and startups, Vause Medical advises a similar approach; don’t try to change something for the sake of changing something, you must start with a powerful mission statement that addresses a clinical need for a specific user group. 

From an industry perspective, Michelle advises, “Healthcare is a challenging industry to be in because of all the regulations that we have. You should have a real love or connection to what you’re developing and a business or a clinical need”. 

When it comes to taking the first step, Vause Medical recommend reaching out and not being shy when it comes to asking for help from partners, distributors, and manufacturers. There is power in asking for help and you never know where one conversation can lead to.

Mentors and advisors of Vause Medical have been incredible drivers to help progress the team, including: 

• The BioDesign Innovation lecturers, Prof David Grayden, Prof Kwanghui Lim, and Simon Wilkins, showed the A-Z of identifying a problem that is worth bringing to market. 
• Yaser Darban, General Manager of Sales Strategy at EnTech Electronics, was their Origin mentor and who inspired them inspiration, shared wisdom and connected the team to other industry partners. 
• Elise Sutherland, Founder of Stelect, guided them through some of the early-stage unknowns of building a healthcare venture.

Apply for MedTech Actuator Origin 2022

Vause Medical made it to the Semi-finals of MedTech Actuator Origin 2021, helping them to get out of an echo chamber and into the startup ecosystem. The Origin experience connected them with key stakeholders and mentors, enabling them opportunities to stress-test LumVi and dive into their product strategy.

MedTech Actuator Origin is a pre-accelerator for the MedTech Actuator’s Accelerator program. Participants can gain fast-tracked entry into the program and the Winner of Origin receives further mentoring to help address key milestones required for the application. After completing MedTech Actuator Origin, Vause Medical applied and was accepted into the MedTech Actuator Accelerator Cohort 7.

“Origin was incredibly beneficial for us, as it gave us that springboard that we needed and the confidence to know that we could progress forward. We are very grateful for the opportunity and are fortunate to join MedTech Actuator Accelerator as the next step. We’re working hard on LumVi, and we’re dedicated to getting it to market”, Michelle Callow.

Whether you’re a researcher, scientist, clinician or student, MedTech Actuator Origin is looking for passionate entrepreneurs to transform healthcare. The winner of MedTech Actuator Origin will receive a $10k cash prize, over $5k worth of in-kind support and gain access to fast-tracked entry into MedTech Actuator Accelerator 2023.

Have questions about the application or program?

Check out the FAQs or reach out to Makenzie, Program and Community Coordinator via email – makenzie@medtechactuator.com – or book a meeting with the team via calendly. 

MedTech Actuator Origin is supported by LaunchVic and the REDI Initiative, powered by MTPConnect.

Thinking about applying to the MedTech Actuator Origin Program? Here are some top tips on how to make your application shine from Shanna Lam – Project Officer at MedTech Actuator.

As a biodesign alumna and an ex-founder I know first-hand how complicated the journey ahead can seem. It does take a village to bring health innovation to market. Luckily, we at MedTech Actuator have done this before and are here to help. Below are a few ideas on how to make your application shine! 

Now that you’ve come up with an innovative health venture and are ready to take the first step to become a startup founder, you might be asking yourself – what’s next?

MedTech Actuator Origin is an early-stage innovation program that turbocharges the development of emerging human health technologies and solutions across Australia and it is the perfect place for emerging founders to start. 

“This is the best first step you can take if you are interested in the MedTech innovation space. The Origin experience will provide you with mentorship, networking and connections. Also, the practical pitching advice you receive will help you in getting further investment or just getting people interested in your idea”, says Wiliam Symington, co-founder of Anura Medical, on his program experience. 

Applications are currently open for the 2022 program and they close on October 7 at 11:59 pm AEST. If you’re excited to join in then you’ll need to nail the application in order to be successfully selected. Below are key areas where you can strengthen your application to put your best foot forward for the program. 

1. Make sure you’re eligible!

First, double-check the eligibility criteria to make sure the program is the right fit for you:

• You have a research project, idea or innovation in human health;
  • And, for this project, the idea or innovation has to be in its early stages of development;
• You are highly motivated to learn about innovation commercialisation, as well as Australia’s health, medical and biotechnology startup ecosystem;
• You are able to attend all program (in-person in Melbourne and online) activities scheduled (Oct 25-27, Dec 1); and,
• You have at least one team member based in Australia.

2. What is the problem you are trying to solve?

The origin experience will help you better define and develop the elements described below, so don’t worry about having it perfect. 

First, tell us what you know about the problem you are solving, who has this problem, and why you’re motivated to solve it. 

Some of the questions you can think about: 

What are the current hospital workarounds, or the daily impacts it has on the patient? 

Who are the people it affects? It may impact not only the patients, doctors, and hospitals, but also family members, insurance companies, and the government.

Customer Validation

In your applications, we want to see a simple description of your idea with key features and benefits (how the person’s experience will improve).

A good first step would be to figure out who are the users and beneficiaries of your innovation – clinicians, patients, and payers. Next, getting a better understanding of their perceptions about the problem, gaps and potential solutions could be the key to understanding the market.

Below are some thoughts from one of our founders on customer validation.

Tim Tyndale, Quitta:

Customer validation can seem like an inconvenient step that slows the building process. After all, we entrepreneurs know exactly what our customers want already…right?!

In truth, validating the problem and solution is more important in MedTech/BioTech than almost any other field. In a highly regulated industry, the further you go down the development journey, the harder it gets to make adjustments. 

In Quitta’s case, we wanted to tailor our solution to the needs of our end-users without having to conduct expensive clinical trials for each iteration. Fortunately, e-cigarettes created a legal precedent in the U.S. for us to test real-world demand and gain all-important user feedback.

Without developing a deep understanding of the needs of our customers, we could have spent lots of time and money building a product that no one wanted at the other end.

We are not expecting you to conduct dozens of formal customer interviews but we want to make sure you understand how this problem is currently being solved and why your solution would be better. 

3. What is your solution?

Once you’ve validated your problem, now is the time to revisit the solution – what proof do you have that this problem needs to be solved and that your solution will be used? Also, does your solution really address the problem? Has your solution solved one problem but created another? Is it too difficult to adjust to?

Can you communicate this in the most simple terms? You can use the Value Proposition Canvas or The Mom Test to match your solution to the pain points your end users face and communicate this in a concise way.

You can even go back to your customers and see how they react to your solution. Check to make sure your potential customers are not cornered into praising your innovation when you talk to them.

Practical tips for the application:

• Be concise, don’t use too much technical jargon and tell us how the solution addresses the problem identified.
• Don’t just tell us how great you think your solution is, tell us who else thinks it’s great, how many people you’ve spoken to and what feedback you’ve received. Back your solution with evidence where possible.

Don’t worry about having it perfect, in the program we will help you better define your problem and solution and learn more about the market. 

4. Passion

Being a startup founder is hard, and can be overwhelming at times. Health ventures could sometimes take years to enter the market and secure a revenue stream, so motivation, focus and a strong support system can’t be underestimated. 

We want to know what drives you to pursue this project, and what does it mean to you? How can we know that you will be committed in the long run? Why are you or your team the right people to take this product to market?

“Challenging the existing market and making the device available to patients is what drives me forward,” says Lorace Zhang, CEO of Vysum. 

Read more about last year’s Origin pitch competition winner, Vysum, and their origin story here. 

In your application, be sure to tell us:

• What makes you passionate and committed to this project, innovation or idea?
• Why you and why your team?

Here to help with your next steps

Applications to MedTech Actuator Origin close on October 7 at 11:59 pm AEST.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to book a call with the team or me.  We’re here to help.

Or, come along to some of our upcoming events:

• Commercialising Health Innovation – Bootcamp for Future Founders (Adelaide) – October 4
• Adelaide Biomed and HealthTech Drinks – October 4
• What The Health Drinks (Melbourne) – October 5

Starting a company can be overwhelming and exhausting. But they don’t need to be – connection, community and relationships of support are what make the difference. If you decide to join us on the journey, you will be welcomed into our community of 250 MedTech founders and befriend companies like Nutromics, Navi, Ventora, Jay-Nik, and others!

MedTech Actuator Origin is supported by LaunchVic and the REDI Initiative, powered by MTPConnect.