The George Washington University (GW) licensee Opal HTM, a company founded by a GW alumnus, Connor Roberts, received GW Technology Commercialization Office’s (TCO’s) very first $100,000 SBIR Matching Fund grant. This grant along with a recently signed exclusive patent license from GW will help facilitate Opal HTM’s efforts to develop a healthcare technology addressing critical challenges in medical device management; making it smarter, safer and more efficient.
Opal HTM received over a million dollars in funding from different sources, including a one-year $275,000 Phase I STTR award from the National Science Foundation (NSF), $50,000 GW Technology Maturation Award (TMA) from TCO, a three-year $550,000 partnership for innovation grant from the NSF, and a $25,000 investment from TEDCO, Maryland’s economic engine for technology companies.
Opal HTM collaborated with associate professor Ekundayo Shittu on the Phase I STTR, providing over $80,000 in research funds to his GW laboratory to further develop the licensed technology. This enabled TCO to match those funds with the full $100,000 internal research award amount for Dr. Shittu to go above and beyond the goals of their STTR proposal.
Roberts says, "It’s exciting to see GW doubling down on patented innovations that have won the support of federal funding agencies, and I’m grateful to the GW TCO for fueling our next stage of development through their trailblazing SBIR Matching Fund. This program gives GW licensees like Opal HTM a massive leg up."
The SBIR Matching Fund is designed to support collaboration between startups like Opal HTM and GW researchers to develop innovations licensed from GW. It matches 2:1 the amount applicant company has spent on internal GW research in the last two years, providing up to $100,000. This includes amounts provided to GW as sub-awards on federal or state grants.
To be eligible for the SBIR Matching Fund, applicants must have
- Received a Phase I SBIR or STTR in the last two years to develop technology owned by GW
- Licensed the technology from GW TCO
- Sponsored research at GW in the last two years
The technology developed by Opal HTM is a small module that attaches to a medical device’s power port and uses advanced algorithms to track and analyze device’s reliability over time.
The idea for Opal HTM’s technology originated from extensive market research conducted by Roberts and Shittu by interviewing more than 200 Healthcare Technology Management (HTM) professionals as part of the NSF I-Corps program and lean startup training from the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Most of the HTM issues were related to excessive and inefficiently scheduled maintenance and uncertainty about equipment decisions due to lack of insight into equipment utilization. The product Opal HTM is developing integrates intelligent sensor modules that measure power consumption—with a software platform using machine learning to analyze and report device-level usage in real-time.
This technology addresses two main challenges in medical device management: inventory optimization and maintenance optimization. Hospital administrators must monitor numerous high-cost devices. By tracking utilization, the technology aids in cost-effective inventory management, leading to better procurement decisions and reduced waste. It uses advanced data-driven statistical techniques on metrics like device usage, age, power consumption, and location. This ensures effective resource allocation, eliminating unnecessary tasks and enabling administrators to identify issues, make informed decisions, and use flexible, condition-based maintenance schedules.
Opal HTM’s tech is currently deployed in GW’s own School of Nursing’s state-of-the-art Simulation and Innovation Learning (SAIL) Center to track the way student nurses use their equipment. Shittu, Roberts and their team continue to refine the algorithm by gathering and analyzing a large volume of data from real-time use. Opal HTM's successful SBIR Matching Fund proposal demonstrates their commitment to advancing their technology and their strong partnership with GW. The award provides leverage to the company's research and development efforts, enabling them to bring this innovation from the lab to the world.