XLerateHealth Accelerator Announces Incoming Fourth Cohort

Six Early-Stage Healthcare Companies Selected

LOUISVILLE, Ky.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--XLerateHealth, (www.XLerateHealth.com), a Louisville-based accelerator for early-stage healthcare companies, announced it has selected six companies to participate as part of its incoming fourth cohort. The accelerator’s 13-week intensive program will begin August 1, 2016 and run until “Demo Day” on October 27, 2016. Selected companies include:

eBlu Solutions (Louisville, KY) is a platform providing workflow-driven services to streamline the complex processes that specialty medical practices face while navigating a patient to treatment. Services include real-time Benefit Investigation, as well as management of Prior Authorization and manufacturer Co-Pay Assistance workflows. eBlu supports practices in providing a better patient care experience, decreasing the time to treat while mitigating the financial risks a practice faces in providing in-office infusion. http://eblusolutions.com/

Epikardis Medical (Nashville, TN) is a medical device ideation and development company. Founded by a registered nurse and a mechanical engineer, Epikardis aims to create products that carry robust clinical and financial incentives. Their first product under development is a chest tube stabilization device that is expected to enter the market in 2017. http://marcushenschen.wix.com/epikardismedical

Medic-Air (Louisville, KY) is a portable cooling device designed for children who suffer from the upper airway infection known as croup. The device is easy to use and on-demand, instantly producing an ambient temperature drop of 50 degrees to help shrink the airway inflammation the virus causes.

Orthopedix (Providence, RI) is a 3D-printed orthopedic implant company that creates personalized, patient-specific implants throughout the body. The implants are individually sized and shaped to fit to each patient’s unique anatomy, offering benefits not achievable with “off-the-shelf” orthopedic implants. http://www.orthopedix.net/

OR Link (Lexington, KY) OR Link is a mobile healthcare software company focused on redefining communication in and around the operating room. At its core, the unique software platform aims to simplify the process by which a surgeon’s “preferences” (for everything from surgical instruments to operating room layout) are stored, shared, and utilized in real time between all the personnel in the OR. Additional features include peri-operative scheduling management and surgical education.

Solas Operations (Toronto, Canada) uses a Raman spectroscopy based diagnostic for early, non-invasive identification of gout. Solas’ novel gout diagnostic is able to identify gout early in asymptomatic patients, which is superior to the other two methods currently used (ultrasound and clinical exam for diagnosis) which identifies gout only after the disease has progressed and the patient is symptomatic - which makes it much harder to treat.

In addition to the Chairman & Co-Founder of XLerateHealth Robert Saunders, a seasoned venture capitalist who has worked with more than 100 startup companies over the past two decades and has mentored several healthcare startup enterprises, fellow XLerateHealth co-founders include Ted Smith, a successful healthcare entrepreneur, former Senior Advisor for Innovation in the Office of the National Coordinator in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington D.C., and Jackie Willmot, who has over three decades in the healthcare innovation and startup space, spending 15 years at Humana and the past 7 years working as a Venture Consultant with healthcare startup companies.

XLerateHealth has received sponsorship support from the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development – Office of Commercialization & Innovation, Louisville Metro Government, The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), Mountjoy Chilton Medley, Old National Bank, and ID&A Office and Interior Design. Supporting venture capital sponsors include Kentucky Enterprise Fund/KSTC (Lexington), OCA Ventures (Chicago), TriStar Ventures (Nashville), River Cities Capital (Cincinnati), and Chrysalis Ventures (Louisville). In kind sponsors include Frost Brown Todd and Argi (formerly OPM Financial). XLerateHealth’s partners include Louisville’s Cardiovascular Innovation Institute; Johns Hopkins Health for America; The National Space Biomedical Research Institute; and The Nucleus Innovation Center. For more information, please visit www.XLerateHealth.com.