Winners of the Boston Scientific Connected Patient Challenge Announced


After several months of voting and a live pitch-off at Google’s campus, Boston Scientific announced the winners of its fifth annual Connected Patient Challenge.

VaGenie, a connected pelvic floor muscle trainer used to address incontinence, prolapse, pelvic pain, postpartum recovery and sexual dysfunction in women, took home first place. Julie Rose, founder and CEO of VaGenie, presented the digital health tool at the pitch-off in Cambridge, Massachusetts and was awarded $15,000 of in-kind services from Boston Scientific and $15,000 of Google Cloud credits.

“A healthy pelvic floor can restore control, strengthen your core and lower back, build confidence and even better your sex life,” Rose said in a video that accompanied her submission.

Weak pelvic floors and pelvic floor dysfunction lead to surgeries that cost the U.S. healthcare system more than $80 billion each year, Rose said in her post. VaGenie gamifies Kegels to make typically boring and difficult to learn pelvic exercises “fun, easy, engaging, trackable and highly effective.”

Along with perks for the women who use the training solution and fertility monitor, healthcare providers can benefit from the tool as well. Providers can see more patients through remote training and monitoring.

Wellthy Therapeutics took home the second-place prize of $10,000 of in-kind services from Boston Scientific and $10,000 of Google Cloud credits following a pitch by Abhishek Shah.

The company’s digital therapeutic (DTx) suite delivers guided self-management of chronic conditions to better outcomes and quality of life. Their product portfolio comprises of a smart phone app for patients, clinical decision support systems for physicians and population level analytics for health systems. Wellthy Therapeutics helps pharma, med device, payers and healthcare systems augment better health outcomes and gives healthcare providers with enhanced clinical decision support. Their clinical and behavioral algorithms coupled with connected device data makes their digital therapeutic personalized, yet scalable. Their active therapeutic areas are in diabetes, cardiology, respiratory and nephrology. 

At the pitch-off, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center presented Massachusetts-based nQ Medical, Inc. with the Spotlight Award. Richie Bavasso and Teresa Arroyo Gallego, who pitched the biotechnology company’s remote patient monitoring device for Parkinson disease, accepted the $25,000 prize. 

nQ Medical is an AI company that has developed computational biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS, MS, et al). Data is collected by tracking a person's interaction with their personal device (laptop, smartphone, et al).  The biomarker works passively and addresses "how" a person types and swipes and not what a person does. No personal data or content is collected. Clinical trials have demonstrated that nQ can be used for early detection, tracking disease progression over time, and measuring the impact of therapy (drug, device, or other).

As the fifth annual Boston Scientific Challenge came to a close after 39 submissions, innovators worldwide came together to create digital health solutions to allow patients with chronic conditions to better manage their health in the comfort of their homes. Such technologies give patients the opportunity to have more control over their health, all while likely saving time and spending less money.

For providers, these innovations can provide valuable data and a clearer picture of a patient’s overall health and free up time for more critical patients to be seen in a traditional healthcare setting.