Upfront Diagnostics has been crowned the first-ever champion in the pre-revenue generating category of Digital Health Rewired Pitchfest 2024.
Its solution is a blood test for large vessel occlusion stroke diagnosis called “LVOne”, enabling a faster and more accurate stroke diagnosis that improves treatment and can help clinicians saving lives.
It will now be offered access to expert advice from the CW Innovation team – a collaboration between Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and its partner charity CW+, with the potential of having their solution rolled out at the trust.
Gonzalo Ladreda, CEO and co-founder of Upfront Diagnostics performed the live pitch and accepted the award from the judges. He said: “It was a great competition; all the companies will make a massive impact.
“Thank you… we’ve spent a really nice two days here.”
The live final took place on the Best Practice Showcase Stage on the floor of Rewired at the NEC in Birmingham. After a tightly-contested set of virtual heats, 25 start-ups were whittled down to 12, with six competing in yesterday’s revenue generating final and six in today’s pre-revenue generating final.
Goggleminds, which provides a training platform to help healthcare professionals, was named the winner in the revenue generating category on day one of Rewired24.
Chris Chaney, chief executive of CW+ and co-lead of CW Innovation, said: “This year’s Pitchfest has been fantastic, and I would like to congratulate Upfront Diagnostics on winning today’s pre-revenue generating final as well as yesterday’s revenue generating winner, Googleminds.
“Digital health technologies play an increasingly important role in the delivery of patient-focused, responsive and cost-effective care, and our CW Innovation team is looking forward to talking to both winners to understand more about their work, offer expert advice and look at whether there are opportunities to work together in the future.”
The other pre-revenue generating finalists who battled it out for the trophy in Birmingham were: Aspedan, Dotplot, Luna, MediTask, PIPRA AG.
Judges that viewed the live pitches and selected the champion were:
- Sara Nelson, Programme Director, DigitalHealth.London
- Mike Wright,Innovation Business Partner, CW+
- Stacey Hatton, CNIO at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton
- Dr Hellena Habtu-Asres, Digital Fellow, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust
- Dr John Lee Allen, Managing Partner, RYSE Asset Management
- Chris Sawyer, Innovation Lead, Digital Health, Innovate UK
CW+ is joined by Pitchfest partners digitalhealth.london, Health Innovation Network, Innovate UK, Health Foundry and main sponsor PR agency Silver Buck.
Digital Health Rewired is taking place at the NEC in Birmingham 12-13 March. The programme is available here.