Roche Diabetes Care and MATTER announce innovation contest finalists

On Monday, March 30, 10 semifinalists for the Roche Diabetes Care (RDC) Innovation Contest gathered virtually to pitch their solutions to leaders from RDC and MATTER and a panel of expert judges. Each team proposed an idea for how to identify the right combination of personalized therapies, activities or behaviors that will improve management and provide greater insight into care planning for people living with diabetes and their healthcare providers. Following the event, Roche and MATTER announced the four finalist teams: AEYE Health, DayTwo, Healthy Interactions and Spectrophon.

Today, approximately 463 million adults worldwide are living with diabetes. By 2045 this number is expected to grow to 700 million [1].

“As much as this is a challenge, this is also an opportunity — for entrepreneurs like you and for industry leaders like us, to bring true relief to people with diabetes and their caregivers,” said Dr. Jörg Hölzing, global head of strategy and customer solutions at Roche, in the opening remarks.

“During this difficult [pandemic] time, we’ve been very impressed at your commitment and dedication to this challenge…and for showing up today despite the challenges you may be facing as a startup in this climate,” added Marco De Polo, head of strategic insights and open innovation at Roche. “I also want to emphasize that we at Roche have learned so much from you — not just from a business perspective but also in understanding how you as an entrepreneur deal with uncertainty and risk, and how you juggle many different priorities.”

What’s next?
The four finalist teams will each receive a $5,000 cash prize and move on to a 12-week, semi-virtual accelerator program where they will develop pilot proposals with dedicated Roche mentors, MATTER staff and stakeholders from across the healthcare community. The program will culminate in a final pitch day, where one winner will receive $20,000 toward the development of their solution, a one-year membership at MATTER and a pilot opportunity with Roche Diabetes Care.

“We’ve learned in our five years as MATTER that industry collaboration is the best way to rapidly scale novel healthcare solutions. That’s why we love programs like this and partners like Roche,” said MATTER CEO Steven Collens “We’ve enjoyed collaborating to find really compelling solutions and passionate entrepreneurs, and to accelerate and scale those solutions — ultimately scaling the impact they can make.”

A special thanks to our distinguished panel of judges who helped shape the day:

  • Adam Berman, US Commercial Franchise Director at Roche Diabetes Care
  • Anton Kittelberger, CEO of MySugr
  • Charles Macfarlane, CEO of the American Association of Diabetes Educators
  • Steven Collens, CEO of MATTER

Read more about the finalists:

AEYE Health — Tel-Aviv, Israel

AEYE Health is an analytics company that develops diagnostic screening solutions for retinal imaging. By utilizing artificial intelligence, computer vision and a database of hundreds of thousands of annotated images, AEYE Health has developed algorithms that can accurately screen and analyze fundus images and provide an immediate diagnosis of all major and advanced conditions including diabetic retinopathy, which affects one-third of all people with diabetes worldwide.

DayTwo — Tel-Aviv, Israel

DayTwo is a precision medicine company that uses microbiome data to create personalized nutrition protocols — delivered through an app — which reduce HbA1c and increase time under glycemic control without the need to eliminate carbs or restrict calories.

Healthy Interactions — Toledo, Ohio

Healthy Interactions’ population health programs support more than 20 chronic conditions. Their enterprise diabetes clinical decision support platform solution seamlessly integrates into EHRs and uses evidence-based rules to provide efficient diabetes stage diagnosis with an optimized care plan for each patient at the point of care.

Spectrophon — Revohot, Israel

Spectrophon is developing affordable disposable sensors for specific chemical substances in liquid or gas. Their most recent product is a complete diabetes care monitoring tool measuring the three main parameters: glucose, HbA1c and ketones.

[1] International Diabetes Foundation, (IDF Diabetes Atlas 9th edition 2019)