University of Aberdeen researchers through to final stage of company creation competition

Two University of Aberdeen researchers, Dr Caroline Barelle and Dr Alasdair Mort, have progressed to the final stage in Scotland's premier company creation competition - the Converge Challenge.

Elasmogen - next generation biologics for the treatment of auto-inflammatory disease and MIME -Managing Information in Medical Emergencies respectively will pitch against four other projects from four Scottish Universities for their chance to win more than £60,000 cash and in-kind business support. 

“The Judging panel paid tribute to the high standard and excellent quality of business plans submitted this year,” said Mervyn Jones, Chair of the Judging Panel. “All of the judges were impressed with the variety and calibre of start-up ideas which reflect the hard work and determination of University staff and students. We believe this delivers a very positive message about the future of innovation and enterprise within academia to improve economic development in Scotland – a ‘can do’ nation!”

Dr Barelle and Dr Mort, along with the other four finalists progress through to the final stage of the competition – the investor pitch stage. The six Converge Challenge finalists are required to deliver a ten-minute investor pitch to this panel on September 29, 2015 at the new Technology and Innovation Centre in Glasgow. They will then attend the Awards Dinner which takes place that evening at the Barony Hall, University of Strathclyde where the winners will be announced. The KickStart and Social Enterprise category winners of the Converge Challenge series will also be announced at the Awards Dinner on September 29^th in Glasgow.

MIME Technologies – MIME stands for Managing Information in Medical Services and MIME Technologies, led by Dr Alasdair Mort and Professor Philip Wilson will bring to market: a novel, lightweight, wireless medical monitoring system designed for first responders and developed over 8 years of research. MIME™ software runs on mobile devices and facilitates easy data capture from wireless sensors, whilst making it simpler to record and audit first responder data.

Elasmogen , led by Professor Andrew Porter and Dr Caroline Barelle, is one of Aberdeen’s newest biotechnology companies which develops small protein drugs called soloMERs™ for the treatment of cancers and inflammatory disease.  The Elasmogen spin out has been supported by Scottish Enterprise and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

In 2014 Chukwudi Onyia & Jonas Marcius of Next Stage Health & Wellbeing Education, University of Aberdeen were joint winners in the KickStart Social Enterprise Award. And in 2013 Madhu Nair, Founder of Saccade Diagnostics, a spin-out from the University of Aberdeen, won the coveted Converge Challenge competition. Saccade will bring to market for the first time clinically-validated objective tests to help clinicians with diagnostic evaluation and management of psychiatric disorders in patients with mental health complaints.