Tulane Teams Win Neuro Startup Challenge, Bringing Innovative Medical Inventions to Market

Thirteen winners of the Neuro Startup Challenge were recently announced, including two Challenge winners from Tulane University in New Orleans. The event is hosted by the Heritage Provider Network (HPN) in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI).

Neuro Startup ChallengeThe open innovation competition, which was launched in August 2014, drew 578 students and 70 teams to participate, all hoping to bring their medical inventions to market. The winning teams were selected based on their business plans, financial models and live pitches and will move forward to phase three of the challenge to launch new businesses to commercialize 16 NIH-conceived and developed inventions.

Inventions included therapeutics, diagnostics, prognostics and medical devices designed to improve brain health.

The two Tulane winning teams and challenges are below:

Challenge #1: A novel compound for treatment of disorders with cognitive dysfunction for example attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Winner-Tulane University 1A

Challenge #7: A novel treatment for vascular disease/injury/inflammation in vasculature such as carotid artery that supplies blood to the brain

Winner-Tulane University 7A

“Today, progress in brain-related illnesses depends on new ways to rapidly advance medical inventions so that patients suffering from devastating brain diseases have greater options,” said Rosemarie Truman, founder and CEO, CAI.  “Thanks to the very generous funding support of HPN and the inventions developed by the NIH, CAI has had the opportunity to foster the next generation of entrepreneurs to develop and commercialize these inventions that hold the greatest promise.”