Johnson & Johnson Innovation Announces Winner of its Advancing the Safe Use of Healthcare Products QuickFire Challenge

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., Nov. 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC today announced developers at CertaDose, Inc. have won its latest QuickFire Challenge: Advancing the Safe Use of Healthcare Products. The challenge called for potentially game-changing, early stage, innovative ideas to help advance the safe use of healthcare products.

Selected from among nearly 100 applicants, the winner will receive a research grant totaling $100,000, as well as entrance to a Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS (JLABS) site, and mentoring from experts at Johnson & Johnson Office of the Chief Medical Officer. CertaDose^TM is a novel pediatric dosing system designed to reduce errors in calculating pediatric dosing for injectable medicines by simplifying the process for calculating milligrams per kilogram body weight.

 "With prescription medication errors causing at least one death every day and injuring approximately 1.3 million people each year, our goal was to positively impact health outcomes by connecting with entrepreneurs, academics, scientists, engineers or startup companies who are advancing exciting new solutions in medication safety," said Joanne Waldstreicher, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Johnson & Johnson. 

CertaDose's Chief Medical Officer, Caleb Hernandez, DO, will be recognized on Tuesday, Nov. 28th at an event at the New York Genome Center, the future home of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS (JLABS) in New York, called JLABS @ NYC. In addition to an awards ceremony, the event will feature a panel discussion focused on fostering innovation to enhance medical safety, featuring Dr. Waldstreicher and Melinda Richter, Global Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS, as well as Arthur Caplan, MD, founding head of the Division of Bioethics at New York University Langone Medical Center. Registration for the event is available here. 

"JLABS QuickFire Challenges are designed to detect and enable better solutions that have the potential to change the trajectory of health to positively impact our future," said Melinda Richter. "The purpose of the QuickFire Challenge program is to help all innovators – academics, independent scientists, researchers, healthcare providers – have a positive impact on people's lives."

About the Advancing the Safe Use of Healthcare Products QuickFire Challenge

This most recent QuickFire Challenge represents Johnson & Johnson Innovation's ongoing commitment to patient and consumer safety. The challenge, which launched earlier this year, was open globally to applicants with solutions across the pharmaceuticals, medical devices and consumer products sectors, and called for innovative ideas to help advance the safe use of healthcare products that would:

• Empower patients and consumers to make more informed healthcare decisions by providing better information and education about the safety of healthcare products (pharmaceuticals, medical devices and consumer products).
• Improve training and development for surgeons by identifying new models that simulate the operating room environment.
• Empower patients and consumers to more safely administer and handle healthcare products.

Johnson & Johnson's Office of the Chief Medical Officer partnered with Johnson & Johnson Innovation on this QuickFire Challenge to identify early-stage, innovative solutions that can help to advance safety in healthcare products.

About Johnson & Johnson Office of the Chief Medical Officer

Established in 2013, Johnson & Johnson's Office of the Chief Medical Officer (OCMO) is a global team encompassing safety colleagues from across all sectors of Johnson & Johnson. Functionally independent from commercial interests, we focus entirely on the safety of all products across the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies. Our approach is reinforced by a cutting-edge single medical safety standard to which all of our products are held.

The OCMO takes an evidence- and science-based, ethics- and values-driven approach to medical safety—with an emphasis on transparency. This has led to the development of policies and initiatives that keep the needs of patients and consumers at the center of our efforts. For more information about the OCMO please visit www.jnj.com/office-chief-medical-officer.

About Johnson & Johnson Innovation

Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC focuses on accelerating all stages of innovation worldwide and forming collaborations between entrepreneurs and Johnson & Johnson's global healthcare businesses. Johnson & Johnson Innovation provides scientists, entrepreneurs and emerging companies with one-stop access to science and technology experts who can facilitate collaborations across the pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer companies of Johnson & Johnson. Under the Johnson & Johnson Innovation umbrella of businesses, we connect with innovators through our regional Innovation Centers, Johnson & Johnson Innovation | JLABS, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLINX, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc. and our Business Development teams to create customized deals and novel collaborations that speed development of innovations to solve unmet needs in patients. For more information, visit www.jnjinnovation.com or follow @JNJInnovation.

About Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS

Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS (JLABS) is a global network of open innovation ecosystems, enabling and empowering innovators to create and accelerate the delivery of life-saving, life-enhancing health and wellness solutions to patients around the world. JLABS achieves this by providing the optimal environment for emerging companies to catalyze growth and optimize their research and development by opening them to vital industry connections, delivering entrepreneurial programs and providing a capital-efficient, flexible platform where they can transform the scientific discoveries of today into the breakthrough healthcare solutions of tomorrow. At JLABS we value great ideas and are passionate about removing obstacles to success to help innovators unleash the potential of their early scientific discoveries.  JLABS is a no-strings-attached model, which means entrepreneurs are free to develop their science while holding on to their intellectual property. JLABS is open to entrepreneurs across a broad healthcare spectrum including pharmaceutical, medical device, consumer and digital health sectors.

JLABS currently has nine locations in innovation hot spots across North America and produces entrepreneurial programs and campaigns to seek out the best science, like the QuickFire Challenges around the globe. The JLABS flagship opened in 2012 in San Diego at Janssen's West Coast Research Center, and since then, has established two locations in San Francisco - one through a collaboration with the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) and a second standalone facility in South San Francisco. JLABS is also located in Boston through a collaboration with LabCentral, in Lowell, Massachusetts through a collaboration with UMass, in Houston through a collaboration with the Texas Medical Center (TMC), in Toronto through a collaboration with the Ontario Government and the University of Toronto and a new JLABS @ NYC (in collaboration with the New York Genome Center -opening in 2018). For more information about JLABS, please visit www.jlabs.jnjinnovation.com.

SOURCE Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC

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