March 14 2019

Chief Investigator Prof. Brian Abbey, together with Associate Investigator Dr Eugeniu Balaur from the La Trobe University Node were the overall winners of the national Medtech’s Got Talent (MTGT) prize. As part of the competition, which was held in Sydney, they pitched their technology and then answered questions from an expert panel. The panelists included venture capitalists and medical technology experts.

The competition began in 2018, and they passed through a series of three pitching events in both Melbourne and Sydney. Prof. Abbey and Dr Balaur won $30,000 in undiluted funds, and the technology resulted in four new PCT applications filed in 2019.

Following the win, they both spent 2019 pursuing a commercial journey and were invited to participate in The Actuator, an Australian medical technology accelerator program. This six-month program provided training, expertise and facilities to enable them to develop and begin a startup.

“We are thrilled to win this prize and money. It will help fast-track the commercialisation of our imaging technology, providing a novel platform for detecting disease,” said Prof. Abbey.

The La Trobe team are now aiming to spin-out their technology from the University and have identified a range of applications for their platform technology, which spans medical, agricultural, as well as the materials sciences.

MedTech’s Got Talent is a unique entrepreneurship challenge supporting emerging entrepreneurs to develop and refine skills in pitching a business concept, developing a technology roadmap and launching commercialisation activities for their medical technology innovations. There is no charge to participate, and participants tap into real resources (money, expertise, network) to ideally position themselves for start-up success.

Read more about the Abbey lab.