From idea to impact through the Innovation Acceleration Program

Three new ventures developed to solve healthcare challenges in surgery, diabetes and stroke have been awarded funding through the Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) and University of Melbourne’s (UoM) Innovation Acceleration Program (IAP).

IAP participants have over the past three months tackled topics including customer development, intellectual property, business models and funding strategy.

The final exercise was a pitch to be awarded up to $100,000 to continue the development of critically needed solutions to unmet clinical needs.

The three successful projects address the hospital-wide management of diabetes; improving outcomes in stroke patients in regional and rural areas using a rapid point-of-care diagnostics; and leverage the advances of rapid 3D printing to improve surgical planning and design customised implants.

The RMH Director of Research, Professor Jo Douglass, was proud of the results the IAP teams achieved over the course of the three-month program.

“The depth and strength of applications to the IAP program is yet further evidence of the innovation and creativity of clinicians and researchers at RMH. Supporting successful solutions to deliver impact through innovation and commercialisation will be a major achievement for both the RMH and the UoM,” she said.

The 2021 RMH-IAP Awarded Ventures will spend the next 12 months developing their projects.

Vitesse3D team: Dr Emmanuelle Koehl (RMH), Dr David Collins (UoM), Dr Anand Ramakrishnan (RMH), Prof Peter Lee (UoM)

Real-time Electronic Glucose Alert System (REGAS) team: A/Prof Spiros Fourlanos (RMH/UoM Hon), Dr. Rahul Barmanray (RMH), Dr. Mervyn Kyi (RMH/UoM Hon) with support from The Centre for Digital Transformation of Health (UoM)

Stroke Rapid Diagnostic Test team: Dr Bernard Yan (RMH), Prof Stan Skafidas (UoM)