At Georgia Tech, cardiology care and procedural heart innovation power a continuous line of research and startups. The research that drives cardiovascular device innovation requires multidisciplinary teams; electrical engineering, fluid dynamics, computational modelling, AI, biochemical engineering, and materials science can all play important roles.

To encourage and support faculty and clinical teams who want to move their research into the clinic, Georgia Tech created several bench-to-patient programs to build on its track record of supporting the launch of successful startups.

Barriers to Commercialization

Once a research team has promising data, their trajectory can stall after achieving a high-impact publication and filing a patent application, but before achieving clinical impact. In addition to their multiple administrative duties, researchers have grants to write, students to train, and research programs to operate.

To build and execute capital-efficient innovations for heart patients and the clinicians who serve them, strategic partners are key. They should include a wide variety of contract design and manufacturing firms as well as FDA regulatory and reimbursement consultants, all of whom provide development and clinical trial guidance to the research team.

Because researchers often lack experience raising capital, building a business, and assembling teams focused on clinical trials and manufacturing, Georgia Tech works closely with researchers to fill those gaps through its Commercialization team of experienced entrepreneurs at Quadrant-i.

Over the last five years, Georgia Tech has assembled mentoring, funding, and business-model discovery programs to move research from labs to patients and remove barriers to innovation.

Funding Models

Medical technology research commercialization funding at Georgia Tech currently has three grant programs and three new Georgia Tech-based venture funds. Together, these resources empower researchers to identify appropriate consultants and contract manufacturers needed early in the development process.

The Cabrera Fund and the Tennenbaum Fund require startups to complete the CREATE-X program, and the Research Innovation Venture Fund requires that startups be based on Georgia Tech-developed and -owned intellectual property. These funds have moved research-based startups closer to market.

Depending on the program, seed grants between $10K and $25K from Georgia Tech’s CREATE-X Summer Launch program provide teams with sufficient capital for customer discovery, travel, and prototype development.

Once researchers are further along in their journey, graduate student teams with Georgia Tech patents can access up to $150,000 from Biolocity, a joint Georgia Tech and Emory Biomedical Engineering program. These engineering teams often collaborate with clinicians from the Emory School of Medicine.

Biolocity funds are frequently used for FDA regulatory work, preclinical data development and proof-of-concept prototyping. Georgia Tech research teams also access grant funding from the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA), which has $250,000 available for university-owned and -patented work. Most teams use GRA funds to de-risk known failure modes in devices, diagnostics and advanced therapeutic development. They often use GRA grants for an initial FDA pre-submission.

Want to receive more information like this directly to your inbox? Sign up for MPO’s The Source eNewsletter!

Real-World Research at Work

In medical device research, Georgia Tech funds support the transition from bench to bedside.

Cardiosense

Cardiosense is a startup from Omer Inan’s Lab in Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Inan, Amit Gupta, and Inan’s former graduate student, Andrew Carek, Ph.D., launched Cardiosense in 2020 to transform cardiac disease management with non-invasive sensors and deep learning to guide personalized therapy at scale.

Cardiosense was among the early portfolio companies to receive an investment from Georgia Tech’s Research Innovation Venture Fund, which helped fund a pivotal study. In 2025, Cardiosense received its 510(k) clearance for its hardware, the CardioTag.

CardioMems

Thomas Barker, Ph.D., created a heart failure monitoring solution using an implantable sensor. The company, CardioMems, was spun out of Georgia Tech and acquired by Abbott Labs. CardioMems has impacted the lives of over 35,000 heart failure patients across 20 countries and received early grant funding from the Georgia Research Alliance.

Apica Cardiovascular Technologies & DasiSim

Apica Cardiovascular Technologies, which developed surgical devices for transapical implantation of aortic and mitral heart valves, and DasiSim, an AI-based pre-surgical planning and simulation platform for transcatheter aortic valve implantation, have delivered improved patient care, and their funds continue to support Georgia Tech’s commercialization programs.

Apica co-founders serve as mentors to campus startups and have returned as founders for an epilepsy prognostic startup. DasiSim’s founders are actively mentoring other campus inventors in the cardiology space.

Through its Biomedical Engineering program, a broad suite of medical technologies is being created in Georgia Tech labs. They include AI-assisted imaging, anti-microbial resistance diagnostics, cancer diagnostics, therapeutics, and photon therapy planning. Teams are also developing highly targeted drug delivery platforms for cancers and lymphatic diseases. 

The Bottom Line

With strong commercialization instructional programs like CREATE-X and VentureLab, venture creation programs like Quadrant-I, and additional funding sources, Georgia Tech’s innovators and their industrial partners benefit from a solid platform for launching the next generation of healthcare technology.

Harold Solomon is principal at Quadrant-i, where he helps Georgia Tech faculty and graduate students create startup companies from their research. He is a six-time company founder and venture investor.