The startup, selected as the top prize winner by med-tech industry leaders, will use the funding to advance its acoustic resonance patch for COPD. 

RT’s Three Key Takeaways:

  1. Grand Prize Winner: Samay secured $350,000 in non-dilutive funding as the top prize winner of MedTech Innovator’s 2024 competition for its acoustic resonance patch, designed for COPD diagnosis and management.
  2. Innovative Technology: Samay’s patch addresses a need for remote monitoring of respiratory symptoms, potentially improving care for nearly 1 billion people affected by COPD worldwide.
  3. Industry Recognition: Selected from a pool of 1,300 applicants, Samay competed against other finalists in front of a live audience of medtech industry leaders, winning by real-time vote at The MedTech Conference.

MedTech Innovator (MTI), an accelerator of medical technology companies, announced that Samay is this year’s grand prize winner, taking home $350,000 in non-dilutive funding. 

Samay, of Mountain View, Calif, and Medellín, Colombia, is developing a novel acoustic resonance patch for COPD diagnosis, management, and intervention.

“During the program, we had access to a top-notch group of sponsor companies and dedicated individual mentors who engaged with us regularly on ideas and concepts from regulatory to technology, distribution, finance, business, and beyond,” says Maria Artunduaga, CEO and founder of Samay, in a release. “The grand prize recognition is not only for Samay but for all the advisors, mentors, minority programs, physicians, engineers, and talent in North and South America that believed in us and our vision for a better future for COPD patients everywhere.”

This is the tenth year that the culmination of the MTI Accelerator program was hosted at The MedTech Conference, a gathering of industry leaders in North America. With a 5% acceptance rate, this year’s MTI Accelerator included 65 companies, selected by a process involving hundreds of industry experts from among 1,300 applicants, training and graduating a cohort of global best-in-class startups with the highest potential for success and impact on patient outcomes.

Grand Prize Competition

The grand prize competition took place in Toronto on Oct 16 on the main Keynote Stage at The MedTech Conference. The live conference audience of industry leaders voted in real-time to select Samay as the winner, following presentations by them and the other four finalists: BrainSpace (Seattle), Flow Medical (Chicago), Juniper Biomedical (Worcester, Mass), and NeuroBionics (Cambridge, Mass), which each received $25,000 finalist prizes.

At the grand prize competition finals, each finalist pitched their value proposition and answered questions from a panel of industry experts, including:

  • Mirren R. Mandalia, senior director, global business development, Johnson & Johnson Medtech
  • Sonal Patel, vice president, business development strategy/M&A integration/venture, Zimmer Biomet, Inc
  • Townsend Goddard, senior vice president, global head of business development, Olympus Corporation
  • Joseph Smith, chief scientific officer, BD

“Congratulations to the entire team at Samay on their well-deserved win of the coveted MedTech Innovator annual grand prize, as determined by the real-time vote of hundreds of leaders in the medtech industry. Samay’s truly game-changing technology platform addresses a critical unmet need for accurate remote monitoring of respiratory symptoms to improve the care of nearly 1 billion people affected globally by COPD, a severely underdiagnosed and deadly disease with a cost burden in the trillions,” says Paul Grand, founder and chief executive officer of MedTech Innovator, in a release. 

Grand continues, “Samay’s win is even more significant when you look at the incredibly high caliber of all five of this year’s best-in-class finalists. We look forward to seeing these finalists and all of the 2024 MedTech Innovator cohort companies continue to advance their technologies in the pursuit of improving care and outcomes for millions of people around the world.”

Photo caption: Maria Artunduaga, CEO and founder of Samay, accepts the 2024 MedTech Innovator Grand Prize Award and check for $350,000 in non-dilutive funding.

Photo credit: Business Wire