Update 21 Oct 2019: XLH received nearly $1.75MM in further support from NIH. -Ed.

XLerateHealth (XLH), the healthcare accelerator based in Louisville, Ky., today announced its selection of nine startup companies to join XLH's 2019 Louisville accelerator cohort.

XLH was founded to help startup healthcare companies successfully commercialize their businesses. XLH's now-75 portfolio companies span biomedical devices, diagnostics, drug therapies, digital health, telemedicine, healthcare services, aging care and other domains.

The XLH program is led by Co-Founder and Chairman Bob Saunders and Co-Founder and CEO Jackie Willmot, MS-Nursing, MBA (University of Louisville).

Among her earlier roles, entrepreneur and advisor Willmot is a former employee of Brentwood, Tenn.-based Digital Reasoning Systems (DRS), according to her LinkedIn.

This is the 8th cohort to be selected for the Louisville program since XLH's launch in 2013. Each company undergoes a 12-week bootcamp. Through the bootcamp, XLH connects participating companies with domain experts, mentors, and coaches who have the expertise to help the entrepreneurs advance to commercialization.

Prior to the cohort announced today, XLH said it had worked with 66 startups in the past six years, more than 80% of which remain operational today.

XLH also offers its healthcare accelerator program in Flint, Mich., where it recently announced inducting six companies. Members of that cohort originated in Michigan and in Canada (release here).

XLH Louisville is funded by the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development via the Regional Innovation for Startups and Entrepreneurs (RISE) grant and is part of the Louisville Entrepreneurship Acceleration Partnership (LEAP).

"We are always excited to see new companies addressing important problems in the healthcare ecosystem" said Jackie Willmot, CEO and co-founder of XLH. "This year's cohort represents a broad range of solutions that have the potential to have meaningful impact on patient's lives. We look forward to working hand-in-hand with the startups and our LEAP and RISE partners to develop these innovations."

XLH says the new cohort includes these companies (descriptions adapted by VNC from submitted release):

► Assay Me (New York City) -- Founder-CEO Nik Plotnikov. At-home testing solution for monitoring diabetes. Using computer vision algorithms, their solution combines a urine test strip with an app that enables mobile phone camera to serve as clinical-grade scanner of urine test strips.

► Briocare (Frisco, Texas) -- Founder-CEO Shaun Mitra. AI-driven Senior Care platform that uses voice technology to mitigate caregiver anxiety and improve quality of life for seniors. Platform affords access to schedule care events, daily patient activity and wellbeing reports, personalized health tips, and more Briocare was previously selected for AARP Innovation Labs for addressing seniors' social isolation.

► Cellgorithmics (Chicago) -- Ryan Clarke. Cellgorithm™: Proprietary CRISPR/Cas9 based, genetic programming platform (in development) converts cells into 'biological computers' using DNA based instructions that read like lines of code. Affects cells of interest to improve the yields and effectiveness of specialized cells. It helps companies focused on biotherapeutics, cell-based therapies, and lab-grown foods to understand and alleviate the molecular inefficiencies and flaws in their cell manufacturing processes.

► Clinitraq (Irvine, Calif.) -- Founder-CEO Raghu Bala. helps capture and analyze radiation data for healthcare workers through The Smart Radiation Dosimeter^TM device that uses real-time location-based radiation dosimetry IoT technology to reduce time needed for measuring cumulative doses from 60 days to 60 seconds, and includes cloud storage, over-the-air firmware updates, machine learning and blockchain integration.

► DSC Technologies (Louisville) -- Tommy Roussel. DSC is developing a point-of-care blood plasma assay to distinguish between Type I and Type II heart attacks. Rapidly providing a diagnostic aid to augment a standard troponin test can bring a rapid identification of heart attack type, thereby helping guide proper medication and palliative care.

► Hardin Scientific (Los Angeles) -- CEO Aaron Hardin. Hardin designs and manufactures smart, modular laboratory equipment to aid Research and Diagnostic companies in the discovery of life-saving treatments and pharmaceuticals. Hardware as a Service (HaaS) business model enables customers to rapidly adopt its products (in 2 to 14 days).

► Kare Mobile (Louisville) -- CEO Kwane Watson. Inis an innovative mobile platform and app for concierge-style dental treatment on demand. Focused on increasing access to oral healthcare regardless of patient socioeconomic status, Kare provides comprehensive dental care on its mobile dental unit by connecting a patient to a dentist based on location, availability, insurance, and procedure.

► NohoMed (New York) -- Roman Shraga. An intelligent monitoring system that detects COPD exacerbations early, using NohoMed's exacerbation detection algorithm. This helps solve some problems related to the high cost of COPD, including patient noncompliance with monitoring protocols and deficiencies in some existing COPD alert systems that produce too many false positive alerts or alerts that come too late for meaningful intervention.

► Prodigy Biosciences (Louisville) -- Founder Amanda Cannady-Miller. An immunoassay for personalized food testing and allergy management. Now, it specifically detects traces of peanut allergens, for rapid lab analysis. This assay could be further developed into a table-side food testing device to help peanut allergies sufferers avert anaphylaxis.

THE XLerateHealth website includes more information on both the Louisville and Flint cohorts of 2019. (###)