Via GeekWire

The five finalists for the Health Innovation of the Year at the GeekWire Awards highlight the multitude of ways that technology is changing healthcare, from treatment in the hospital to the development of new therapeutics.

This category highlights pioneering health, life science, biotechnology or medical breakthroughs that hold great promise for bettering our lives or improving the healthcare system.

Read more about the finalists and cast your vote below.

Last year’s winner in this category was AltPep, a Seattle startup developing a test that could detect signs of Alzheimer’s disease. The company on Monday published successful results from its latest research.

The GeekWire Awards recognize the top innovators and companies in Pacific Northwest technology. Finalists in this category and others were selected based on community nominations, along with input from GeekWire Awards judges. Community voting across all categories will continue until April 12, combined with feedback from judges to determine the winner in each category.

We’ll announce the winners live on stage at Showbox SoDo in Seattle on May 9. There are a limited number of table sponsorships available to attend the event. Learn more and sign up to attend on the GeekWire Awards event site.

If interested in sponsoring a category or purchasing a table sponsorship for the event, contact us at events@geekwire.com.

Special thanks to Astound Business Solutions, the presenting sponsor of the 2024 GeekWire Awards.

Read more about the five finalists for Health Innovation of the Year:

• A-Alpha Bio: This Seattle startup, a spinout of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, combines computational tools with yeast experiments to identify potentially therapeutic proteins. It partners with drug companies to help them find the best agents to test on a range of conditions. The startup was co-founded in 2017 by CEO David Younger and CTO Randolph Lopez, using the technology they helped to develop while graduate researchers at the UW. The company, which raised $22.4 million in July, was a finalist in this category in 2022.
• AdaptX: Originally known as MDMetrix, this Seattle startup uses AI to help healthcare providers analyze medical data from their electronic medical records to detect patterns and trends that might indicate ways to improve care or reveal inefficiencies in how care is delivered. It raised $10 million in November in a round led by Cercano Management. The company is led by CEO Warren Ratliff and was started in 2016 by a pediatric anesthesiologist, Dr. Dan Low.
• adyn: Elizabeth Russo founded this Seattle startup after her own journey finding a birth control method that didn’t make her miserable. The company’s birth control test analyzes key hormone levels and DNA, among other markers, and provides personalized medication recommendations. Adyn also aims to harness its data for research. The company raised $2.5 million in 2021 from investors including 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki.
• CalmWave: The spinout of the Al2 Incubator in Seattle aims to make the hospital a quieter place by using software to help reduce alarms from devices attached to patients in the ICU. CalmWave CEO and co-founder Ophir Ronen previously founded Event Enrichment HQ, a Seattle startup that helped companies respond to IT-related events and was acquired by PagerDuty. CalmWave, which raised $4 million in 2022, won the UX Design of the Year category last year.
• Proprio: The University of Washington startup wants to change surgery with a system that enables surgeons to see key structures on a screen in three dimensions in real time. The company’s system, called Paradigm, helps clinicians place incisions and guide placement of hardware, such as devices that can help straighten a spine. The 8-year-old company, led by CEO Gabriel Jones, last year received a key FDA clearance and raised $43 million. It hit another milestone in November after a successful first-in-human use of Paradigm.