Children’s National Hospital and Additional Ventures Partner for Pediatric Cardiology Devices

The Alliance for Pediatric Device Innovation (APDI), a nonprofit consortium led by Children’s National Hospital and funded by the FDA, has partnered with Additional Ventures, a nonprofit foundation focused on accelerating research progress and improving clinical care for individuals born with single ventricle heart defects, to solicit proposals and offer grant funding for the development of pediatric devices specifically evaluated and labeled for children with heart conditions.
 
Current technologies for pediatric heart patients often fall short because they are typically adapted from adult devices and may not provide the accuracy, safety, or comfort required for children. This led to a significant unmet need for pediatric devices designed to monitor and treat young patients effectively in cardiology, interventional cardiology, cardiac surgery, and electrophysiology.
 
Areas of special interest include remote patient monitoring systems that can track vital signs and heart function in real-time, wearable devices designed for continuous monitoring and minimally invasive technologies for cardiac procedures. Through this request for proposals, APDI seeks innovative solutions that address these gaps, offering the potential to transform care for children with heart conditions by developing advanced, child-centric devices.
 
“Our commitment to advancing pediatric cardiology is stronger than ever. With the launch of this initiative, we are paving the way for innovative pediatric devices that will transform how we monitor and care for children with heart conditions,” said Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., M.B.A., vice president and chief innovation officer at Children’s National and APDI program director and principal investigator. “This proposal allows us to support projects that show promise in advancing novel devices specifically designed for children and support innovators who need funds for the complex process of bringing new technologies to market.”
 
The total award fund of $300,000 will be distributed among innovators with the most promising devices as selected by the judging panel. As part of the collaboration, Additional Ventures and APDI will provide winning companies with support services and technical expertise, including but not limited to regulatory, reimbursement, clinical trials study design, and data science services.
 
APDI is one of five nonprofit consortia in the FDA’s Pediatric Device Consortia program that receives funding to provide a platform of services, expertise, and grants to support pediatric innovators in bringing medical devices to the market that address the needs of children. Along with Children’s National, APDI members include Johns Hopkins University, CIMIT at Mass General Brigham, Tufts Medical Center, MedStar Health Research Institute, OrthoPediatrics Corp., and MedTech Color.
 
The deadline to apply for the APDI medical device grant is midnight on September 23, 2024.