Four New Orleans Startups Make Final Round of Annual BioChallenge

Each year, the New Orleans BioInnovation Center hosts the BioChallenge, a pitch competition for life sciences startups in Louisiana. The competition lets finalists compete for more than $50,000 in cash and investment at a public pitch that will be held on November 8 in New Orleans.

The BioChallenge was created to support new businesses that will generate jobs and economic growth in the state,” shared the BioInnovation Center.

The Center received 20 applications from healthcare startups across Louisiana. From there, they narrowed it down to eight companies from New Orleans and Baton Rouge that had the highest scores from the initial pool.

All four of the 2017 finalists are New Orleans startups. Get to know them below (written by the BioInnovation Center):

  1. Every year, five million biopsy procedures are performed to diagnose cancer in the United States. One million of those patients need repeat procedures due to inadequate biopsy quality. Painful repeat procedures also delay life-saving treatments. Current biopsy quality assurance methods capture less than 1% of a total biopsy. Instapath has developed a solution that provides an exact picture of a whole biopsy at subcellular resolution within seconds to ensure the quality of biopsies. Instapath’s solution also reduces the time of biopsy procedures, enhances the overall workflow and supports remote evaluation.
  2. Obatala Sciences, Inc. is a tissue-engineering company that offers its core technology, Fat-on-a-Chip, as both a service and a kit. Fat-on-a-Chip is a 3-dimensional, human adipose tissue culture system that is marketed for disease modeling and drug discovery within the obesity/diabetes/metabolism pharmaceutical and academic sectors. This drug screening tool will help researchers to identify more efficacious lead compounds in human tissue and reduce the time, money, and efforts required for large-scale animal models.
  3. RDnote is a digital health company helps healthcare providers’ deliver quality care and receive compensation for effective, customized interventions with high-risk patients in the hospital and ambulatory setting.
  4. Ready Responders recruits, trains, and equips a network of full- and part-time EMTs and healthcare professionals to respond to the city’s 911 medical calls, working in partnership with local ambulance services. Utilizing a proprietary app & GPS technology to rapidly deploy its first responder network and telehealth technology supported by Board-certified emergency medicine providers, Ready Responders gives 911 patients the right care, at the right time and at the right place. Ready Responders also helps patients overcome the most prevalent barrier to care, transportation. The company aims to response times, direct patients to appropriate points of care, and reduce costly ambulance transports and use of overcrowded ERs.