The Innovation to Impact team at Yale (I2I) today announced that six start-ups will each receive $10,000 in grants to help bring a product to market to combat substance abuse.
These grants are awarded to promising innovators who are committed to addressing addiction by launching proven innovations into the marketplace. The grants must be used within three months toward the company’s innovation.
The grant recipients are:
- Buprenorphine Home Induction (BUP): a mobile app that educates and guides patients at home on how to conduct buprenorphine induction.
- Upside Health (Ouchie): an interactive mobile app for alternative (non-opioid based treatment) chronic pain management.
- Lasso Diagnostics: developed a diagnostic tool that identifies infants who are physically dependent on opioids.
- Neurotype: a company that accesses objective biological insight into treatment effectiveness by using endpoint biomarkers.
- Biomotivate: a digital platform that motivates patients to remain sober through the use of data, digital dashboards etc.
- BEAM: a company that empowers healthcare practitioners with information that can rapidly identify patients at great risk of relapsing.
Innovation to Impact is led by an interdisciplinary team of faculty and researchers at Yale who train substance abuse researchers in entrepreneurship. The program sponsors a free five-day bootcamp on entrepreneurship and product development, virtual office hours to access an extensive network of new venture mentors, seed funding for new ventures, and training in how to promote a culture of entrepreneurship locally.
The Innovation Grant is a natural addition to the Innovation to Impact programming. According to Seth Feuerstein, MD, JD, Co- Director and PI of I2I at Yale, “Through the small grants, we go beyond providing technical business guidance to scientist. We now give monetary support to accelerate innovative research and help startups bring their research to the public.”
Addiction and substance use have vast social and economic effects in the United States. An estimated 20 million people are struggling with substance use disorders, and the yearly economic impact in the U.S. is $193 billion.
“To make a difference in the fight against addiction and substance use it is imperative to identify and support a myriad of innovative work,” said Patricia Simon, PhD, Co-Director of I2I at Yale. “That is what the Innovation Grant does: recipients’ research is diverse and will address different facets of substance use. Congratulations to all recipients.”
Innovation to Impact is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Annually, this program accepts about 30 leading scientists working on substance abuse to its fellowship program. For more details about the program, click here.