Boston New Technology Startup Showcase #94: HealthTech Startups

Boston New Technology Startup Showcase 94

October 16, 2018

This month’s BNT was hosted by Dassault Systemes in Waltham, MA on Tuesday, October 16th. The theme this month was healthtech startups.

Boston New Technology Startup Showcase 94: Dassault Systemes in Waltham, MA

Boston New Technology’s Startup Showcase was back in the suburbs this month, easy for me to access again.

The event begins with about an hour of food and networking. Some of the event sponsors frequently have booths, as well. This month, most of the presenters also had booths, making for some interesting discussions even before the presentation portion.

Next up are the presentations. First, the sponsors are given a minute or two each to talk. Then the startups present. Each presentation is 5 minutes, with another 5 minutes allocated to Q&A.

Following, I’ll write a little about each of the presenters at this month’s event. I’ll explain, as well as I can understand from their quick presentations, who they are and what they do. As always, if something intrigues you, don’t rely on the accuracy of my description. Instead, check out the websites and contact the companies for yourself. Because if you’re interested, you’re probably a much bigger expert in that product area than I am, so you’ll know better which questions to ask.

Personal Remedies has a website and series of 36 mobile apps in a “choose this, not that” format that provide dietary information for people with chronic health conditions. Its corporate tagline is “individualized help for chronic conditions.” The company was at the event promoting its API (application program interface, for non-techies) that connects to a comprehensive database of health and medical information.

Pilleve is an integrated pill bottle that monitors prescription opioid use for high-risk patients to help prevent abuse and addiction. Based on the patient’s pain level, it metes out the correct amount of pills. It provides guidance and suggests, and, while it’s not tamper-resistant, it does register when it’s tampered with and alerts those who need to know. The goal of this device is to prevent an unintentional slide toward addiction and abuse in the first place by low-risk individuals, not to protect against it in high-risk individuals.

Conscioux is a platform that promotes health by encouraging a plant-based diet. Designed to be used by corporations and insurance companies to encourage healthy eating, there is currently a free beta of the consumer version.

CareZooming connects clinicians and promotes innovation within the healthcare community. The path to profitability is via a subscription-based platform for clinicians to share information. There is also the opportunity for healthcare organizations to white-label it to encourage innovation within their clinician communities. You may recognize CareZooming from my review of Monday night’s Mass Innovation Nights event.

ModiBrace, who I first spoke with at a Mass Innovation Nights event in March, has developed a new kind of 3D-printable, adjustable back brace for scoliosis treatment. By reducing production costs and making the brace adjustable, this would be a vast improvement over current braces, whose expense and inability to be adjusted cause children with scoliosis to suffer with ill-fitting braces for far too many years. This brace is currently in the prototyping stage, not yet in clinical trials.

iCareBetter is a customizable platform designed to help medical professionals improve patient outcomes. Designed to allow patients to watch videos to better understand that which was likely explained hurriedly in the doctor’s office, this platform is also interactive, ensuring that the patients understand the videos they watch. Monetization is expected to occur by charging physicians on a per-client basis. A free version is supported by commercials.

KEVA Health’s product, the KEVA Health Advisor, is a platform that helps connect patients with medical information. An AI/analytic-driven SaaS product, it’s designed for patients with chronic disease and is expected to be monetized as an employer-pays, tiered-pricing service.

As usual, it was another great BNT event. If my schedule permits, as always, I’ll see you at next month’s BNT, too; it’s scheduled for November 15th and will feature cleantech/greentech startups.