Medtech nenture wins NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competition
NovaUCD today announced that exVal, an early stage medtech venture, as the overall winner of the 2023 NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competition and a €5,000 cash prize. ExVal is focused on addressing the issue of early detection of childhood pneumonia as it continues to be a leading cause of death in children under the age of five, especially in the developing world.
ExVal’s solution is a portable, modular device for fast and early detection of pneumonia using an electrochemical sensor that detects relevant biomarker proteins in exhaled breath condensate. The non-invasive solution only requires an infant to breathe normally into the device via a mouthpiece and provides results based on breath condensate biomarker analysis.
The three members of the exVal team, all students in the UCD College of Engineering and Architecture are; Sarthak Jain, a postgraduate Biomedical Engineering student along with Simon Peter and Nathan Hens, both undergraduate engineering students.
Simon Peter, exVal team member, said: “Pneumonia is responsible for a child’s death every 43 seconds according to UNICEF. Although simple interventions and appropriate treatment can prevent childhood pneumonia deaths if the disease is diagnosed by x-rays and blood tests in its early stages.
“However pneumonia often goes undiagnosed and untreated in the community, especially in developing countries where access to x-rays and blood tests can be an issue, until the child is critically ill. Our novel solution is a simple and accurate inline screening for children via a modified electrochemical sensor and offers fast results based on breath condensate biomarker analysis.”
Tram mate Sarthak Jain added: “The next steps for exVal are focused on iterating the prototype to achieve higher functionality. This will help us to engage with subject matter experts and research labs to further collect preclinical data as part of our IP strategy. We shall also explore the screening potential for other paediatric respiratory diseases, such as tuberculosis, based on insights garnered during the comprehensive customer discovery process undertaken during the NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competition.”
The NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competition is an intensive four-week mentoring programme for student entrepreneurs. Now in its ninth year, the programme is run by NovaUCD, the start-up hub at University College Dublin (UCD).
Tom Flanagan, UCD Director of Enterprise and Commercialisation, said: “Congratulations to all the students who took part in this year’s NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competition over the last four weeks to refine their start-up ideas. I would especially like to congratulate the exVal team, the overall winner of this year’s competition. We look forward to seeing exVal and the other early-stage student ventures move forward and develop further and in due course successfully launch on the market.”
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