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SINGAPORE, June 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The five finalist teams of the inaugural 'Mundipharma Cancer Care Challenge' pitched their ideas on how to harness the power of technology to improve the lives of cancer patients to a panel of judges at Southeast Asia's largest innovation festival, Innovfest Unbound, in Singapore on 28 June. A team of students from the National University of Singapore emerged as the winner with its rapid diagnostic liquid biopsy test kit for cancer based on Zinc Finger protein detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), that can be administered in the home setting.
Global cancer rates have risen over the years, where 18.1 million new cases and 9.6 million deaths were recorded last year [1]. Cancer cases in Singapore have also been on the rise where one in every four to five people may develop cancer in their lifetime and the number of people living with cancer is set to continue to increase [2].
Mundipharma and NUS Enterprise -- the entrepreneurial arm of the National University of Singapore (NUS) -- launched the 'Mundipharma Cancer Care Challenge' earlier this year to seek game-changing ideas that use technology to solve problems that cancer patients and doctors face.
The panel of expert judges, including practicing oncologists and members of Mundipharma's leadership team, chose the winning team's idea because of its potential to achieve this. The team received a cash prize of SGD 5,000, mentorship opportunities by industry veterans and a chance to scale-up their solution in collaboration with Mundipharma.
Mundipharma CEO, Raman Singh, said, "The Mundipharma Cancer Care Challenge is about tapping into the minds of technology innovators to develop actionable solutions that can improve the lives of cancer sufferers, which is a natural fit with our core mission to alleviate human suffering and improve healthcare for all."
"I would like to congratulate the winners as well as the other finalists and thank all the teams that participated. We were thoroughly impressed with the submissions and finalists' presentations. We're excited about the potential, bright and young NUS students' idea has to deliver ground-breaking results and superior patient outcomes."
More details about the Mundipharma Cancer Care Challenge are available at mundipharmacancercarechallenge.com.
[1] World Health Organisation, 12 Sep 2018, Latest global cancer data |
[2] National Cancer Centre Singapore, 4 Dec 2018, Cancer Statistics |
About Mundipharma
Mundipharma is a network of independent associated companies, which are privately owned entities. Mundipharma is a prime example of an organization that consistently delivers high-quality medicines while standing by the values it represents. Its mission is to alleviate the suffering of patients and to substantially improve their quality of life. Mundipharma is dedicated to bringing to patients the benefit of novel treatment options in fields such as analgesia, CNS, oncology, oncology supportive care, ophthalmology, respiratory disease and consumer healthcare.
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