Shark Tank Competition 2019

The Epilepsy Foundation’s Shark Tank Competition seeks to advance innovative ideas in epilepsy seizure treatment and care. The winners will use their prize to accelerate their innovation to the next phase of development and closer to being accessible to people living with epilepsy. In total, 35 individuals or teams entered the competition from across the United States and 8 countries throughout the world. From this pool, 5 teams were chosen as finalists. The finalists presented on May 24, 2019, at the 2019 Antiepileptic Drug & Device (AEDD) Trials XV Conference in Florida.

2019 Shark Tank Competition Winners

$75,000 Audience Choice Award and $75,000 Judges Award

 

Detecting Seizures with an Eye-Opening Solution

Rachel Kuperman MD, CEO of Eysz, Inc.

With this project, Dr. Kuperman plans to develop and deploy 100 eye-tracking wearables that will be used in a clinical study at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). The clinical study will refine the wearables’ patented seizure-detection algorithm for absence seizures.

Dr. Kuperman’s mission with Eysz is to give clinicians and patients the tools they need to improve patient outcomes and quality of life. This device will help provide specific, sensitive means for detecting seizures, a relief from intensive EEG monitoring currently needed to detect seizures and seizure-related events. Dr. Kuperman’s project comes from her ten years of clinical practice at the University of California San Francisco Bennioff Children’s Hospital as a pediatric epileptologist.

$50,000 Judges Award

 

Falling Down the Rabbit Hole of Medication Adherence

Jody McNannay, Co-Founder, Curadite, Inc. and parent of a daughter with epilepsy

Curadite hopes to optimize its innovative medication management platform, which incorporates intelligent packaging, patient reminders, and a clinician dashboard for the epilepsy community. Jody brings her experience as a mother with a child with epilepsy to the project. She has learned firsthand the difficulty of managing medication adherence.

The platform provides timely support for individuals with epilepsy. It also alerts care teams when loved ones are struggling to take medication as prescribed. Shark Tank funds will be used to develop and customize the platform for strict seizure medication adherence. They will also work closely with their research partner to complete the pilot design and recruit the clinicians, patients, and care teams needed for the pilot.

Shark Tank Finalists

Matthew Musser

Seize the Wheel: Improving Patient Care through VR

Matthew Musser, CEO & Founder, University of California Davis Health

• A virtual reality driving simulator, coupled with the diagnostic abilities of an EEG, that allows physicians to determine the level of consciousness of patients during short epileptic discharges.
• The simulator will help doctors make more informed decisions with patients about day-to-day activities like driving and medication managements.

EpiSAT: An EHR-Integrated Clinician Decision Support Tool for Detecting Seizure Risk

Sarah Chiang MD, PhD

Sharon Chiang MD, PhD, Neurology Resident at the University of California San Francisco and creator of EpiSAT

Robert Moss, Co-Founder of Seizure Tracker

• EpiSAT is an algorithm that has been developed in collaboration with SeizureTracker.com. It uses seizure diary data to estimate a patient’s current level of seizure risk. This data can be sent to both the user and their clinicians’ electronic health record (EHR) system and can work with any online seizure diary.
• This project will carryout an extension of the EpiSAT algorithm. The extension will increase flexibility to accommodate large scale EHR data. EpiSAT will also be deployed as a clinical decision support tool for beta testing with SeizureTracker.com.

Sensor Dot: Logging Seizures and Epilepsy Biomarkers at Home

Benjamin Vandenriessche PhD

Hans Daneels PhD, CEO and Co-Founder, ByteFlies

Benjamin Vandendriessche PhD, Chief Medical Officer, ByteFlies

• ByteFlies has developed Sensor Dot, a tiny wearable that can continuously monitory the cardiovascular, respiratory, nervous, and musculoskeletal systems. Sensor Dot can record brain activity (EEG), heart rate, activity and motion, respiration, electromyography (recording of the electronic activity of muscle tissues), and electrodermal activity. 
• ByteFlies also encourages clinicians and researchers to connect with their developing platform to build novel applications that can help people with epilepsy.

Shark Tank Judges

Thank you to the 2019 Shark Tank judges!

• Page Pennell MD, Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Director of Research, Division of Epilepsy, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA
• May Liang, Co-Founder, General Counsel and Chief Financial Officer, OpenConcept Systems, Inc.
• Terrence O’Brien MD, Professor of Medicine, Department of Neuroscience and Medicine, Monash University, Australia
• Tracy Dixon-Salazar PhD, Director of Research and Strategy, LGS Foundation
• Timothy Feyma MD, Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare

Do you have an idea for the next Shark Tank? Submissions will open in the fall of 2019, with the finalists presenting at the 2020 Epilepsy Foundation Pipeline Conference in Santa Clara, CA.