Media Releases

Five UTEST companies to tackle critical healthcare challenges

May 15, 2013

Program’s second cohort includes eQOL, E‑Twenty Development, Root2Crown, Treata Smart Solutions and TrendMD

TORONTO, ON — Five com­pa­nies tack­ling per­va­sive health­care chal­lenges — such as assess­ing den­tal health, help­ing patients and med­ical per­son­nel nav­i­gate hos­pi­tals with greater ease, stay­ing cur­rent with med­ical lit­er­a­ture, or cre­at­ing dig­i­tal tools to help care for the elder­ly or those with chron­ic health con­di­tions — have been admit­ted to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Ear­ly Stage Tech­nol­o­gy (UTEST) program’s sec­ond cohort.

UTEST, sup­port­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Inno­va­tions & Part­ner­ships Office (IPO) and MaRS Inno­va­tion (MI), is part of a grow­ing sys­tem of incu­ba­tors and com­mer­cial­iza­tion sup­port ser­vices at U of T.

Two com­pa­nies in UTEST’s sec­ond cohort, E‑Twenty Devel­op­ment Inc. and Trea­ta Smart Solu­tions Inc., are par­tic­i­pat­ing in Cana­da 3.0 at the Metro Con­ven­tion Cen­tre May 14 and 15, 2013, in Toron­to.

Each com­pa­ny will receive up to $25,000, incu­ba­tion space in the MaRS Dis­cov­ery Dis­trict, men­tor­ing and busi­ness strat­e­gy sup­port to devel­op pro­tectable intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, launch their prod­ucts and gain mar­ket trac­tion. They are also eli­gi­ble to become clients of MaRS Dis­cov­ery District’s ICE or Health­care prac­tices.

UTEST seeks scal­able, enter­prise-focused soft­ware appli­ca­tions inter­est­ed in build­ing busi­ness-to-busi­ness cus­tomer bases — and prefer­ably oper­a­tional prod­ucts with a short term to mar­ket. The pro­gram is co-direct­ed by Kur­tis Scis­sons (U of T IPO) and Dr. Lyssa Neel (MI).

The sec­ond cohort has big shoes to fill. In six months, UTEST’s first cohort col­lec­tive­ly secured over $1.2 mil­lion in fol­low-on fund­ing and cur­rent­ly employs 29 high­ly skilled peo­ple (HQPs). Each com­pa­ny also filed sol­id patent pro­tec­tion and most have secured cus­tomers. Notably, Whirlscape’s Indiegogo cam­paign secured over $87,000 in prod­uct funds from 10,000 users, and was fea­tured in the Finan­cial Post, TechCrunch, Mash­able and The Verge, among oth­er glob­al media out­lets.

Second UTEST Cohort: Company Profiles

eQOL, Inc.

Focus: Dig­i­tal tools for peo­ple liv­ing with chron­ic con­di­tions beyond hos­pi­tal set­tings

CEO: Binh Nguyen

U of T con­nec­tion: CEO and Co-Founder Binh Nguyen is a recent U of T grad from the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Depart­ment of Elec­tri­cal & Com­put­er Engi­neer­ing (Bio­med­ical); CTO and Co-Founder Jonathan Tomkun is a master’s stu­dent in the Insti­tute of Bio­ma­te­ri­als and Bio­med­ical Engi­neer­ing.

http://www.linkedin.com/company/eqol-inc-

https://twitter.com/eQOLInc

https://www.facebook.com/eQOLInc

eQOL’s first prod­uct, DiCAT, is a mobile-based solu­tion for renal dial­y­sis patients. DiCAT pro­vides chron­i­cal­ly-ill patients with tools that enable them to care for them­selves using home dial­y­sis, which is espe­cial­ly impor­tant in remote areas. Using DiCAT, doc­tors can mon­i­tor their patients and inter­vene when­ev­er nec­es­sary, espe­cial­ly dur­ing emer­gen­cies. DiCAT is unique because it extends beyond tra­di­tion­al mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems by incor­po­rat­ing patient-ori­ent­ed tools, enabling patients to respond imme­di­ate­ly and inde­pen­dent­ly to non-urgent issues. eQOL’s self-care mod­el increas­es patient engage­ment and improves con­di­tion man­age­ment, result­ing in cost reduc­tion across Ontario’s health­care ecosys­tem and beyond.

E‑Twenty Development, Inc.

Focus: Zero-infra­struc­ture wayfind­ing

CEO: Edmund Ben­til

U of T con­nec­tion: CTO Jana­han Ramanan is a master’s stu­dent in the Fac­ul­ty of Applied Sci­ences and Engi­neer­ing; Lead Soft­ware Engi­neer Satyam Mer­ja is a stu­dent in the Leslie Dan Fac­ul­ty of Phar­ma­cy

http://www.etwenty.co/

http://www.hospitalconcierge.co

Each year, poor nav­i­ga­tion by patients, vis­i­tors and staff costs the aver­age hos­pi­tal sev­er­al hun­dred thou­sand dol­lars. E‑Twenty has devel­oped a patent-pend­ing indoor nav­i­ga­tion and wayfind­ing sys­tem that requires no Wi-Fi, GPS, or addi­tion­al infra­struc­ture. Its flag­ship prod­uct, Hos­pi­tal Concierge, is a loca­tion-aware health­care app for iOS and Android that enables effi­cient wayfind­ing and enhances staff, patient, and vis­i­tor inter­ac­tions inside hos­pi­tals. E‑Twenty has signed two major uni­ver­si­ty-affil­i­at­ed med­ical cen­ters as beta test sites for its prod­uct.

Root2Crown, Inc.

Focus: Devel­op­ing prod­ucts to help den­tists and con­sumers assess the risk of caries (cav­i­ties)

CEO: Céleste Mérey

U of T con­nec­tion: CEO Céleste Mérey gradut­ed in 2011 from the Insti­tute of Bio­ma­te­ri­als and Bio­med­ical Engi­neer­ing; CSO Getulio Nogueira is an assis­tant pro­fes­sor in the Fac­ul­ty of Den­tistry

Root2Crown is devel­op­ing hard­ware and soft­ware solu­tions to make it eas­i­er to con­duct and com­mu­ni­cate required den­tal risk assess­ment process­es while increas­ing the effi­cien­cy, reli­a­bil­i­ty and avail­abil­i­ty of den­tal health assess­ment and diag­no­sis for den­tal schools, prac­tices and the gen­er­al pub­lic.

Treata Smart Solutions, Inc.

Focus: Wear­able tech­nol­o­gy to help mem­o­ry-impaired old­er adults and their care­givers

CEO: Ashkan Sat­tari

U of T con­nec­tion: Co-Founder Ali Shari­at is a PhD can­di­date in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Depart­ment of Elec­tri­cal and Com­put­er Engi­neer­ing

http://www.treatasolutions.com/

https://twitter.com/treatasolutions

Mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment affects as many as 20 per cent of old­er adults, and the prob­lem is grow­ing — every eight sec­onds, anoth­er Baby Boomer turns 65. Car­ing for a loved one with mem­o­ry loss can cause frus­tra­tion, dis­tress, and real eco­nom­ic loss for care­givers. Lost wages cost care­givers approx­i­mate­ly $75 mil­lion in 2010. Treata’s total solu­tion for con­nect­ing care­givers with their loved ones eas­es this bur­den. The Trea­ta Smart­Care­giv­er sys­tem includes:

• Lost Item Find­er that uses Blue­tooth, GPS and smart­phone tech­nol­o­gy to track an individual’s per­son­al belong­ings
• The Smart Wan­der­ing Assis­tant, a tam­per-proof bracelet that helps nav­i­gate or locate the wear­er
• Smart Reminder phone app that keeps care­givers informed about the loca­tion and con­di­tion of their loved ones.

Trea­ta helps peo­ple with mem­o­ry loss live inde­pen­dent­ly longer, and gives their loved ones peace of mind.

TrendMD

Focus: Med­ical pub­li­ca­tion trend­ing engine

CEO: Paul Kud­low

U of T con­nec­tion: CEO Paul Kud­low is a res­i­dent physi­cian in psy­chi­a­try.

http://www.trendmd.com/

https://twitter.com/trendMD

Trend­MD, a med­ical trend­ing engine, instant­ly deliv­ers per­son­al­ized, high-impact research arti­cles. With over 2,000 new pub­li­ca­tions added dai­ly, Trend­MD uses aggre­gate social met­rics and algo­rith­mic fil­ters to iden­ti­fy the few must-read arti­cles. Found­ed in 2013 by physi­cians look­ing for an eas­i­er way to keep up, TrendMD’s goal is sim­ple: keep med­ical pro­fes­sion­als cur­rent and save them time.

About University of Toronto

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to has assem­bled one of the strongest research and teach­ing fac­ul­ties in North Amer­i­ca, pre­sent­ing top stu­dents at all lev­els with an intel­lec­tu­al envi­ron­ment unmatched in breadth and depth on any oth­er Cana­di­an cam­pus. The U of T fac­ul­ty are also wide­ly rec­og­nized for their teach­ing strengths and com­mit­ment to grad­u­ate super­vi­sion. Estab­lished in 1827, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to today oper­ates in down­town Toron­to, Mis­sis­sauga and Scar­bor­ough, as well as in nine renowned aca­d­e­m­ic hos­pi­tals.

About MaRS Innovation

MaRS Inno­va­tion is the com­mer­cial­iza­tion agent for Ontario’s excep­tion­al dis­cov­ery pipeline from 16 lead­ing aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions. As a sin­gle-entry point to mem­ber-based activ­i­ty of $1 bil­lion in annu­al research and devel­op­ment, MI is a gate­way for investors and licensees to access tech­nol­o­gy assets. Sup­port­ed by the Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da through the Net­works of Cen­tres of Excel­lence, by the Gov­ern­ment of Ontario through the Ontario Cen­tres of Excel­lence, and by its 16 mem­ber insti­tu­tions, MI is a trans­for­ma­tion­al part­ner­ship that turns research strengths into com­mer­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties. MI’s port­fo­lio includes the most promis­ing assets from its mem­bers’ pipeline, which it advances into glob­al mar­kets through indus­try part­ner­ships, licens­ing and com­pa­ny cre­ation.

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For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact:

Eliz­a­beth Monier-Williams
Mar­ket­ing and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er
MaRS Inno­va­tion
emonierwilliams@marsinnovation.com
647–537-9097
@marsinnovation