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HHS announces $2.6 million innovation prize competition for ESRD care
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SAN DIEGO — At ASN Kidney Week today, HHS announced the opening of the application period for the first KidneyX prize competition. Overall, $2.6 million in awards are available for individuals or companies interested in building new devices for the treatment of kidney disease.
“We know for 40 million Americans with kidney disease, the current rate of innovation is simply not enough,” Ed Simcox, chief technology officer of HHS, said during the opening plenary session. “For the 100,000 Americans who will start dialysis this year, the current rate of innovation is simply not enough.”
The Redesign Dialysis competition is aimed at innovators, engineers, medical product developers, material scientists, patients, nurses and others to develop better treatment options to patients and families, according to an HHS press release.
The prize competition will run in two phases with a total prize purse of $2,625,000. The first phase will award up to 15 prizes of $75,000 to participants who design solutions or components of solutions that can replicate normal kidney functions and improve patient quality of life. Phase 1 will run until Feb. 28, 2019 and awardees will be announced on April 30, 2019. The second phase, planned to run from April 2019 to January 2020, will ask participants to develop initial prototypes.
Simcox said HHS aims to celebrate breakthroughs in the treatment of kidney disease with the KidneyX competition as it is the first step to lowering the barriers to investing in new medical devices.
“We must ‘de-risk’ the market,” he said. by Mark E. Neumann
References:
Simcox E. Opening plenary session. Presented at: ASN Kidney Week, Oct. 23-28, 2018; San Diego.
www.kidneyx.org
Disclosure: Simcox reports he is chief technology officer of HHS.