MIAMI, May 17, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Epilepsy Foundation today announced the 2013 winner of the Epilepsy Therapy Project Second Annual "Shark Tank" competition for the most innovative new product idea for people with epilepsy. Utkan Demirci, Ph.D. and Steven C. Schachter, MD designed a novel point of care disposable microfluidic chip that can immediately detect the levels of antiepileptic drugs based on a finger-prick sample of blood. The Shark Tank featured live interactive voting by an expert panel of judges and audience members. The winners received a $100,000 grant to accelerate this product to the next phase of development and closer to benefitting patients. The Shark Tank competition took place during the annual Antiepileptic Drug and Device Trials (AED) XII Conference in Miami. The Pipeline Session, which occurs today, will highlight significant advancements in therapeutics and technologies to treat epilepsy.
Judges presiding over this year's Shark Tank represented a breadth of perspectives and personal interests in innovative product development. Six finalists competed on concept, design, originality, cost to market and, most importantly, how their visionary idea would improve the lives of people living with seizures. Judges included actor and Epilepsy Foundation spokesperson Greg Grunberg, leading philanthropists, national experts and epilepsy advocates. An audience of industry and investment executives and medical researchers voted alongside the panel.
"The 2013 Shark Tank award recognizes a pioneering collaboration between Dr. Demirci, an accomplished Harvard and MIT scientist and Dr. Schachter, a leading clinician and researcher in epilepsy with the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) and Harvard. With support from our Epilepsy Therapy Project initiative, we are solving an unmet challenge in epilepsy. This is a true innovation that will allow physicians, individuals with epilepsy and their caregivers to analyze the effects of epilepsy medication on a real time basis," said Philip M. Gattone, President and CEO of the Epilepsy Foundation. "For the Epilepsy Foundation, this $100,000 award will go a long way in empowering patients to have a more active role with their physicians in managing seizure control and the side effects associated with the medications available today. We are also excited about the role this rapid and intuitive technology will have in accelerating the development of future epilepsy therapeutics for millions of people living with epilepsy around the world."
"We have accomplished two objectives that are core to the Epilepsy Foundation today. To fuel partnerships between scientists, clinicians and industry, and to advance the application of technologies, such as Dr. Demirci's microfluidic platform, that have been scientifically validated in a broad range of settings other than epilepsy," Mr. Gattone added.
The 2013 Shark Tank award recognizes a significant advancement in personalized medicine for epilepsy:
Disposable Microfluidic Chips Detect Antiepileptic Drug Concentration at the Point of Care and the Moment of Need Optimizing each patient's treatment requires individual decisions about medicines, dosing and timing. Seizure control and minimizing serious side effects has depended to date on conventional blood testing. However, patients and their physicians need answers fast. Dr. Demirci, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, and Dr. Schachter, Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, propose a novel microfluidic and disposable detection technology for blood levels of anti-seizure medications that can be performed anywhere based on a finger prick, similar to blood glucose monitoring for diabetics, and a cellphone to produce a read out in just 15 minutes. With a projected cost of less than $1 per test, this approach has the potential to be quickly adopted and help physicians advise their patients on optimal drug treatment.
"The challenges of epilepsy are many, and include the everyday difficulties of dealing with and treating seizures," said actor Greg Grunberg, one of the "Shark Tank" judges, father of a son with epilepsy and well-known for his role on the television series Heroes. "I joined an amazing group of 'sharks' today to hear wide-ranging and brilliant ideas to help everyone living with epilepsy. I was so pumped by the presentations. We could only award one presenter, but everyone affected by epilepsy needs to know the work of the Epilepsy Foundation, including Shark Tank, is constantly encouraging innovators to push the envelope for new epilepsy therapies."
The judges and Shark Tank audience voted on a total of six presentations with an intelligent wristband invention by Rosalind Picard, Sc.D., Affectiva, being voted the "People's Choice."
EpiBand: Electrodermal and Seizure Event Alert An Intelligent Wristband that Integrates Nervous System, Body Temperature and Individual Activity to Predict Seizure Severity and Potentially Save Lives
Modern wristwatch designs boost cool capabilities like GPS technology or even golf course information. Rosalind Picard, Sc.D, Affectiva, Inc. and team are developing the Epiband, which takes wristwatch design and smart technology in a new direction. Epiband is a wearable seizure detector worn as a comfortable wristband that provides clinically useful autonomic and activity data and alerts for many conditions by communicating wirelessly with standard smartphones. The EpiBand captures sympathetic nervous system activation, temperature, activity, and possibly audio data which are key to detecting seizure onset and duration. Unlike other technologies, the EpiBand measures electrodermal activity (EDA), a sensitive indicator of sympathetic nervous system activation, which is one of the main components of stress. The investigators note that the largest EDA peaks occur with grand mal seizures, followed by significant smaller peaks signifying complex partial seizures. The size of electrodermal response has also been shown to highly correlate with a biomarker of significant interest in studies of SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy). Thus, when large EDA responses are measured, even for a very short grand mal seizure, it may become important to issue an alert for potential intervention as a precaution against possible SUDEP.