A call for pediatric cardiovascular devices: $100K competition now accepting proposals

WASHINGTON - Children's National Health System is now accepting proposals for its annual "Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!" competition. New this year, the competition is focused on pediatric cardiovascular devices to address a significant unmet need for children. The competition will be held on Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018 in Philadelphia, Pa. at the Sixth Annual Pediatric Device Innovation Symposium. For the second year, the one-day symposium is co-locating in a joint effort with The MedTech Conference powered by AdvaMed - the premier gathering of medtech professionals in North America.

Children's National invites proposals from innovators with pediatric cardiovascular medical devices that have potential for commercialization. Competition finalists will pitch their device to a distinguished panel of judges and as many as four innovations will be awarded $25,000 each. In addition to the prize money, winners will receive consultation services from experts at Children's National Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation and University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering. This year, the competition is funded by the Children's Hospital Foundation. The deadline to apply is Monday, Sept. 10. Competition details and application can be found here.

"There is a profound need for cardiovascular devices made specifically for children, especially the younger subpopulations of children under 18 years of age, so we decided to focus this year's competition on this one particular need with the emphasis on also testing these novel devices on the younger kids," says Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., vice president and chief innovation officer at Children's National and principal investigator of NCC-PDI. "We are seeking devices that can make a life-saving difference for thousands of children each year."

Over the last five years, Children's National and the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI) have awarded $1.425 million to 31 companies. Past awardees include CorInnova, Green Sun Medical, Maternal Life, PhotoniCare, Prapela, Procyrion, Rebion, Velano Vascular and X-Biomedical, to name a few.

The one-day Symposium, which will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, brings together key leaders in the device space to stimulate pediatric device innovation and bring solutions to market faster for the benefit of children everywhere.

This year's theme is "Using Real-World Evidence to Drive Pediatric Innovation," recognizing that, on August 31, 2017, the Food and Drug Administration issued the finalized guidance for medical device developers' use of real-world evidence (RWE) and real-world data (RWD) to gain FDA approval for medical devices. At the symposium, stakeholders from industry, government, academia and patient groups will discuss how best to use real-world evidence (RWE) to drive pediatric device innovation. The panels include RWE discussions related to the payors' perspective, policy and regulatory perspectives, and the digital revolution (artificial intelligence and machine learning). The symposium will close with an update from the FDA.

"We are very pleased to co-locate our symposium and competition with The MedTech Conference again this year," says Eskandanian. "Joining forces with AdvaMed for last year's event proved to be invaluable in reaching new players in the space that could help further pediatric device development." She adds that any company interested in testing a pediatric version of their device or looking to get into the pediatric market should plan to come one day early to The MedTech Conference to learn more at this very interactive gathering.

A pre-symposium reception for competition finalists and panelists will be hosted by Children's National and Drexel University. As one of founders of the Philadelphia Pediatric Medical Consortium and a member of the Coulter Translational Research program, Drexel has been a driving force for research and development of pediatric medical technology in the region. This event will give finalists an opportunity to celebrate their achievement and provide them with an opportunity to network with a wide range of pediatric innovation experts attending the symposium.

To register for the symposium, visit www.themedtechconference.com. For the symposium agenda and additional event details, visit www.pediatric-device-symposium.org.