Entrepreneurs ‘Xcelerate’ Innovation At Pitch Competition

An augmented reality system that helps surgeons navigate surgeries to remove cancer…

an interactive tele-rehabilitation platform for children, and an analytical tool to optimize patient scheduling—these were the winners of the first Xcelerator pitch competition, a celebration of health technology innovation, entrepreneurship, and grit.

During the pitch competition, held Friday at the AAMI Exchange, five health technology startup companies pitched their technologies to an expert panel of judges. The entries were so impressive that AAMI President and CEO Rob Jensen announced a doubling of the prize amounts.

The first-place winner, Ohio-based MediView AR, won $10,000 to further develop “X-ray vision” technology that superimposes 3D holograms of the patient’s internal anatomy in real time, using previous imaging (such as a CT scan) and an augmented reality headset.

Licensed from the Cleveland Clinic in 2017, the “real-time fused holographic visualization” technology, promises to improve treatment for cancer patients by allowing for radiation-free surgical navigation, according to CEO John Black.

“This has huge potential. Instead of looking at a patient on the table, you can see through their skin, visualize what you’re trying to get to, and what’s in the way,” Black said. “This is a revolution in how we visualize medical data.”

Following the pitch competition, inventor and Cleveland Clinic project scientist Karl West wowed attendees by letting them wear the headset and look into his body—revealing the heart, lungs, blood vessels, and simulated cancer tissue beneath in full 3D. Mediview AR’s technology is working towards a 510(k) premarket submission in the next two years.

“The potential benefits of extended reality assisted surgical procedures are tremendous.  Existing surgical imaging modalities have limitations that reduce their effectiveness in percutaneous procedures and expose medical professionals to risks associated with radiation exposure, which MediView’s technology is specifically designed to overcome” said John W. Black, CEO and Co-Founder of MediView. “We are excited to partner with the lab at Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute to design, test and refine this technology.”

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