CHISEL Healthcare InnoMatch 2025

Company Description:
16 Bit is a Canadian medical imaging AI company founded by radiologists, developing Rho™, an opportunistic osteoporosis screening tool. By analyzing routine X-rays, Rho identifies patients with low bone mineral density who may benefit from DXA testing. Their mission is to improve the quality, efficiency, and accessibility of preventive healthcare globally.

Solution:

Rho™ is a Health Canada, U.S. FDA, Australian TGA and Singapore HSA–approved AI software-as-a-medical-device (SaMD) that enables opportunistic osteoporosis screening using routine X-rays. Osteoporosis often remains undiagnosed until fractures occur, yet millions of chest, spine, pelvis, and extremity X-rays are performed each year without bone health assessment. Rho analyzes these existing images to generate a score from 1 to 10, identifying patients at increased risk of low bone mineral density. Patients with a positive Rho result (score ≥ 6) can then be referred for DXA scanning, the diagnostic gold standard. This approach unlocks new value from existing imaging workflows, improves early detection rates, and facilitates preventive interventions to reduce fracture risk. Deployed in radiology, orthopedic and primary care clinics, Rho supports clinicians in identifying at-risk patients, increases DXA referrals, and strengthens quality of care while generating new revenue opportunities for providers. With approvals across multiple regulatory jurisdictions and expanding partnerships in the Americas, Asia, and Europe, Rho is poised to become the global standard for opportunistic osteoporosis screening.

Company Description:
Acorai is a Swedish MedTech company transforming heart failure management through a non-invasive, FDA Breakthrough–designated device for right- and left-sided cardiac pressure monitoring. Using our patented SAVE Sensor System and proprietary datasets, Acorai enables faster diagnosis, personalized therapy, and reduced hospital readmissions, improving outcomes for patients and healthcare systems.

Solution:

Acorai has developed a breakthrough solution for heart failure management: the only non-invasive device capable of accurately estimating both right atrial and pulmonary capillary wedge pressures. Current gold-standard methods, such as right heart catheterization, are invasive, resource-intensive, and impractical for routine monitoring. Acorai’s device, powered by the patented SAVE Sensor System, combines seismic, acoustic, visual, and electric biosignals analyzed through advanced machine learning trained on a proprietary global dataset of more than 2,000 patients.

In clinical validation studies across 20 leading hospitals in the US, Europe, and Canada, Acorai has demonstrated superior accuracy to existing non-invasive tools, meeting and exceeding clinical requirements for pressure assessment. The device records data in

just five minutes and provides actionable pressure estimates directly at the bedside or in community care. This enables earlier detection of congestion, more precise therapy personalization, and optimized discharge decisions.

By spanning the entire patient journey - from emergency triage and inpatient monitoring to long-term community management - Acorai delivers faster, more cost-effective care while reducing costly readmissions. With over $13M invested, multiple patents granted, and FDA/EU approvals anticipated in 2026, Acorai is uniquely positioned to reshape heart failure therapy and generate significant clinical and economic impact.

Company Description:
AI Medical Service (AIM) is a Tokyo-headquartered startup dedicated to eliminating gastrointestinal (GI) cancers through AI-powered endoscopy. By enhancing early detection and reducing diagnostic oversight, AIM empowers clinicians to identify cancers earlier, improving patient outcomes and addressing the global shortage of skilled endoscopists.

Solution:
gastroAI is AI Medical Service’s real-time, AI-powered diagnostic support tool that helps endoscopists detect early-stage gastric cancers during upper GI endoscopy. Designed to reduce missed detections, gastroAI acts as an extra set of expert eyes, enabling earlier and more accurate diagnoses when treatment is most effective.

The system integrates seamlessly into existing clinical workflows. It is plug-and-play, requiring only a single cable connection to standard Olympus or Fujifilm endoscope systems, with no changes to hospital infrastructure. AI-generated confidence scores appear in real time on a second monitor or the main screen whenever the endoscopist captures an image of the inside of the stomach.

gastroAI is HSA-approved in Singapore and built with data privacy and reliability in mind. It operates fully offline and unidirectionally, ensuring no patient data is stored or transmitted and eliminating risks linked to network failures.

Patients benefit from earlier detection, improved survival, reduced anxiety, and lower treatment costs. Endoscopists gain better diagnostic accuracy, less fatigue, and fewer unnecessary biopsies, all without disrupting existing workflows.

Company Description:
Better Medicine leverages AI to transform oncology diagnostics, ensuring cancers are detected earlier and monitored more effectively. By combining automated and human-guided lesion management, our solutions enhance radiology workflows, reduce missed findings, and enable faster, more accurate diagnoses, driving better outcomes and improved care for patients worldwide.

Solution:
Early detection of kidney cancer can be challenging because symptoms can often be non-specific and easily misattributed to other common conditions. Research shows that over 60% of kidney cancer cases are detected incidentally (Bradley et al., 2021).

BMVision Kidney is the world’s first CE-marked and clinically validated AI model for detecting and characterising kidney lesions from contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) scans. The solution identifies lesions with malignant and benign features and automatically provides key measurements, including volume, true longest dimension, and three orthogonal dimensions. Fully compliant with DICOM standards, it integrates seamlessly into PACS, with flexible cloud-based deployment available.

In a study at Tartu University Hospital, Estonia, combining BMVision Kidney with radiologists achieved 99.2% sensitivity when detecting lesions with malignant characteristics, and 95% for lesions with benign characteristics (publication pending).

Company Description:
Gense is a health screening device company backed by Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, Gobi Partners, Particle X, HKUST, and Cyberport. The company develops devices and solutions for preventive healthcare and chronic disease management. Gense is also the winner of Jumpstarter 2022, Forbes 100 to Watch, and ICT Startup Awards Grand Award.

Solution:
Gense offers mediscan, a medical imaging device for preventive screening and chronic disease monitoring in lung, liver, and kidney. Applicable for home care and primary care, the device monitors some of the most prevalent chronic diseases including lung function, fatty liver disease, and chronic kidney disease. Specifically, users can connect the palm-sized IoT device to their tablets, follow simple in-app instructions for 1-minute zero-radiation scans, and receive easy-to-read clinically-benchmarked results within minutes via cloud-based AI algorithms. Generated reports allow for actionable insights, such a diet and exercise, for personalised health improvement. Mediscan is deployed in clinics, corporate healthcare services, home care services, elderly services, and more. The device is operable by social workers for high-throughput and scalable screening services. The technology is developed by a team of PhDs and researchers in Hong Kong, and clinically validated at the University of Hong Kong and Queen Mary Hospital. The research has generated 9 patents and has been published in 19 publications including Nature Scientific Reports. Mediscan is also an accredited medical electrical equipment under IEC60601 with ISO 13485 Medical Device certification.

Company Description:
GyroGear is a neurotech company restoring independence to people with hand tremors. Our flagship product, GyroGlove 1.0, is the world’s most advanced hand stabiliser. It uses high performance mechanical gyroscopes to instantly steady the hand. Non-invasive and drug-free, it empowers users to regain confidence and control in daily life.

Solution:
Approximately 200 million individuals globally suffer from lifelong, incurable hand tremors (Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor). Today’s therapies are inadequate - medication has significant side effects, whilst neurosurgery remains risky. Wearable options remain extremely limited. GyroGlove 1.0 thus provides instant restoration of quality of life. Yet patients face minimal long-term care options - misdiagnoses are high, treatment options are limited, and tremors are extremely variable and poorly understood clinically. Navigating side-effects, physiotherapy, mental health, stigma etc in old age is taxing. We are thus building GyroCare, the world’s first tremor management ecosystem. GyroGlove instantly steadies hands, whilst embedded sensors quantify tremor patterns. Patients gain real-time feedback and restored independence; clinicians receive objective, longitudinal data to guide treatment. Integration of patient and clinician access greatly accelerates optimisation of GyroCare’s AI and interaction interfaces. Reinforcement learning algorithms adapt to highly variable tremor severities, subtypes and progression, providing timely, clinically meaningful alerts while conserving device energy. Users and families finally have organised, actionable information of a complex, life-long condition. Physicians too have always asked us for continuous monitoring, early warnings, multimodal treatment optimisation, multi-disease capability etc.

Company Description:
LIFESCAPES, a Keio University–origin startup, develops brain-computer interface (BCI) technology to restore motor function for patients with severe paralysis caused by stroke or spinal cord injury. Our mission is to enable patient recovery, improve quality of life, and support healthcare providers with innovative, clinically validated rehabilitation solutions.

Solution:
LIFESCAPES’ BCI solution enables patients with severe motor impairments, traditionally considered untreatable, to regain hand function. Using EEG biomarkers, the system monitors brain activity linked to motor intention, allowing real-time detection of movement attempts. This signal is translated into precise interventions via wearable robotics and electrical stimulation, creating an effective rehabilitation loop.

Our technology integrates patient-led, autonomous training with clinical workflows. The BCI system automatically adjusts intervention intensity based on the patient’s progress, while EEG and AI-derived insights can guide rehabilitation strategies, such as prioritizing functional recovery or activities of daily living. This approach reduces dependency on continuous supervision and allows healthcare providers to focus on high-priority tasks.

Clinically validated in over 800 cases in Japan, our solution demonstrates significant motor recovery within two weeks of training, far shorter than competing devices requiring 12-week protocols. Its design supports home and inpatient use, enhancing accessibility, efficiency, and patient engagement. By combining physiological monitoring with adaptive therapy, LIFESCAPES’ BCI technology improves patient outcomes, shortens hospitalization, and offers scalable, evidence-based rehabilitation for global markets.

Company Description

Nalagenetics develops highly accurate predictive genetic testing for diverse populations at risk of cardiovascular, metabolic, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases.

Solution:

Nala Clinical Decision Support (RxMax) is an end-to-end pharmacogenomics (PGx) platform that embeds genetic insights into everyday prescribing to reduce adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and improve treatment precision. In Singapore, ADRs contribute to 8.1% of hospital admissions and cost the healthcare system over USD 168 million annually—many of which are preventable.

RxMax combines four components: an AI-powered chatbot to streamline pre-test consultations, a bioinformatics engine compatible with multiple sequencing technologies, an EHR-integrated clinical decision support (CDS) platform, and a patient-facing mobile app for report access and sharing. To ensure operational readiness, Nala has partnered with a CAP-accredited lab in Singapore for sample processing and is in the process of integrating with the National Electronic Health Record (NEHR) to enable seamless prescribing support.

o Validated in clinical pilots with PRECISE (Singapore) and Raffles Medical Group, RxMax has demonstrated high prevalence of actionable PGx variants (95%) and real-world prescription adjustments (21.2%). Regionally, it has supported over 10,000 reports in Indonesia’s BGSi

population sequencing program, proving scalability across diverse healthcare systems. With flexible, platform-agnostic deployment, RxMax enables safer, cost-effective prescribing in cardiology, oncology, psychiatry, and beyond—aligning with Singapore’s precision medicine agenda while delivering measurable reductions in ADRs, hospital readmissions, and healthcare costs.

Company Description:
NDR Medical develops AI Image-guided solution to enable safe and accurate interventional access into different anatomy targeting lesions and nodules, enabling early detection and treatment of cancer and superior clinical outcome for surgical procedures.

Solution:
NDAnalyzer is a software solution to assist Surgeons and Interventional Radiologists during pre-op planning and intra-op procedure. The 3D segmentation and nodule identification feature makes it ideal during patient consultation, providing a visual explanation of treatment plans. The software can be integrated to PACS System for seamless receiving of Patient DICOM scans either in real-time or with post scan analysis.

Company Description:
Oncoustics creates advanced AI solutions for low cost, noninvasive surveillance, diagnostics, and treatment monitoring of diseases with high unmet clinical need. By applying AI to raw ultrasound signals, we reveal novel acoustic biomarkers and perform virtual biopsies thereby avoiding expensive and invasive diagnostics for better triage and early interventions.

Solution:
The OnX Liver Assessment Solution is indicated for non-invasive ultrasound acquisition and provides estimates of stiffness as well as measurement of the ultrasound attenuation coefficient. The estimates of stiffness and ultrasound attenuation measurements may be used as an aid to diagnosis and monitoring of adult patients with liver disease, as part of an overall assessment of the liver.

OnX is a clinical decision support tool that is predicated on Fibroscan (transient elastography) and shearwave elastography to enable . Unlike these devices however, the OnX is low cost and pocket sized and, as the solution guides the data acquisition, it does not require a trained sonographer to perform the exam. Since the results are quantitative, it does not require a radiologist to interpret the exam.

Submit your application for CHISEL InnoMatch 2025 on the Challenge Portal by 28 March 2025, 23:59 SGT. Multi-participation is welcomed. Fill in the application form available in the participant space, providing the following:

·       Applicant and Company Information

·       Solution Pitch Deck (7 slides)

·       Pitch Deck Guidelines can be downloaded in the Challenge Portal.

 The panel of judges for CHISEL InnoMatch 2025 will shortlist start-ups and SMEs to move to Stage 2. Results will be announced by 21 April 2025.

Shortlisted start-ups and SMEs are to submit your full proposal, addressing the following but not limited to:

·       Healthcare (organisational) needs and relevance

·       Innovation (competitive advantage, current competing strategies, technologies, competitors)

·       Maturity/ market readiness

·       Impact (quantifiable)

·       Ease of transition to adopt by users

·       Business plan (i.e. commercial applications, economic viability, go-to-market strategy of solution)

·       Clinical, technical and operational readiness

·       IT viability

·       Prior or existing trials, proof-of-concept, proof-of-value and/or clinical validation results

·       Safety and regulatory registrations/ certifications/ licenses

Results will be announced by 23 Jun 2025. Up to seventy (70) start-ups and SMEs will be selected to move to the next shortlisting round.

Results of the next shortlisting round will be announced by 4 Aug 2025. Up to twenty (20) start-ups and SMEs will be selected to move to the next shortlisting round.

Up to twenty (20) start-ups and SMEs will be invited to present your solution at Engagement Sessions with our clinical partners and reviewers. Engagement Sessions will be held virtually at night, between 1800 and 2100 SGT (GMT+8/ UTC+8). Each session will be approximately fifteen (15) to twenty (20) minutes, with time allocated for the presentation and Q&A. More details on the arrangement of schedule will be shared nearer to date.

Results will be announced by 25 Aug 2025. Up to fifteen (15) ) finalists will be selected.

Finalists will be coached by experts in preparation for the Final Pitching Event. This may include coaching on refining the value proposition of the solution, budgeting, business plan, pitching. Oral presentation of your solutions is required during the coaching sessions. Guidance on submission materials for the Final Pitching Event will be provided nearer to date.

Finalists will pitch to the Judging Panel composed of senior management from the partner healthcare clusters and domain experts. Finalists in Singapore are required to attend the event in-person, while finalists overseas may dial-in through the online live-streamed platform.

Up to six (6)  winners will be selected at the end of the Challenge, announced on the day of the event itself.

Successful winning start-ups and SMEs will be matched to one of the participating healthcare clusters to carry out test-bedding.

 Winners will be granted three (3) months of preparation time to finalise the project agreement (and additional three (3) months if ethics approval is required); up to nine (9) months to complete test-bedding; and up to three (3) months to complete the evaluation.

 Test-Bedding Phase (Oct 2025 – Dec 2026 )

·       Refine the test-bed protocol and define success criteria of the test-bed with your partner healthcare cluster. You would also define the pricing for subsequent purchase, subject to the solution meeting pre-agreed success criteria. You may be required by your partner hospital to supplement more documentation to facilitate the test-bedding and potential adoption.

·       A Project Agreement should be set up within three (3) months (an additional three (3) months may be granted if ethics approval is required).

·       Test-bedding should start no later than Apr 2026. Complete test-bedding in a simulated and/or clinical environment complying to regulations and institutional policies with your partner healthcare cluster. Test-beds should be completed within nine (9)) months.

 Evaluation Phase (Jan 2027  – Mar 2027)

·       Upon completion of the test-bedding phase, the partner healthcare clusters would evaluate the success of the test-bed.

All CHISEL 2025  test-bed solutions are to be evaluated using the CHI Evaluation Framework (CHIEF). CHIEF is a holistic framework for the evaluation of innovative solutions seeking real world deployment. Evaluation costs should be included in your application. You may also engage additional services (e.g. statistical analysis, study design, sample calculation etc.) from CHIEF or an independent expert for the purposes of the test-bed at your discretion.