DARPA Archives - BioHealth Innovation

Actuated Medical, Inc. of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, has been named the winner of the 2026 BioHealth Capital Region Crab Trap Competition, following a live pitch on September 16 during BioHealth Capital Region Week at U.S. Pharmacopeia in Rockville, Maryland.

Maureen L. Mulvihill, Ph.D., President, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Actuated Medical, presented the company’s NeuralGlider® platform, a precision brain access and deep brain therapy delivery technology designed to improve the placement of increasingly small and sophisticated neurological devices and therapies.

The company’s pitch focused on a growing challenge in neurotechnology. As brain therapies use smaller probes and cannulas, accurately reaching the intended target can become more difficult. Actuated Medical is developing NeuralGlider for applications including DBS and SEEG electrode placement, brain-computer interfaces, next-generation brain implants, and longer-term CNS biologics and gene therapy delivery.

Actuated Medical entered the competition with substantial technical and commercial progress already behind it, including more than $18 million in NIH SBIR and DARPA non-dilutive funding, 15 issued U.S. and international patents with additional patents pending, use in more than 41 global brain research labs, and more than $500,000 in early preclinical brain research sales.

As the 2026 Crab Trap winner, Actuated Medical received a prize package totaling $35,000 in cash and services:

• $15,000 from VIPC and BioHealth Innovation, Inc.
• $10,000 in IT and cybersecurity services from Info Pathways
• $10,000 in CRO services from Noble Life Sciences

Actuated Medical was selected from a record 82 Crab Trap applications and a group of six finalists representing four U.S. states and France.

BioHealth Innovation also thanks the five other finalists who took the stage and shared their companies, technologies and commercialization plans:

• Aidar Health, Columbia, Maryland, developer of MouthLab, an FDA-cleared handheld platform for rapid collection of multiple clinical-grade vital signs.
• Cortexx Medical Intelligence, Paris, France, developer of AI-enabled clinical decision software for spine-surgery planning and patient selection.
• Lisen Imprinting Diagnostics, Wilmington, Delaware, developing cancer diagnostics based on Loss of Imprinting biomarkers and artificial intelligence.
• Liquet Medical, Glen Allen, Virginia, developer of the Versus Catheter for pulmonary embolism treatment with continuous pulmonary-artery pressure monitoring.
• Phycin, Frederick, Maryland, developing engineered bFGF growth factors for bioprocessing, regenerative medicine, wound healing and tissue-repair applications.

The finalists presented before judges Matthew Miessau of Epidarex Capital, Brett Shealy of J.P. Morgan, Teddy Gresser of TEDCO, John Newby of Virginia Bio, Tien Wong of Opus8, Tai Mai of VIPC and Ethel Rubin of BioHealth Innovation. BioHealth Innovation President and CEO Rich Bendis served as moderator.

The competition evaluated companies across product and technical strategy, business strategy, leadership, financials and overall presentation. Each finalist had seven minutes to pitch followed by three minutes of questions from the judges.

Actuated Medical is now focused on moving NeuralGlider toward clinical use. Its presentation outlined a $10 million Series A to support clinical optimization, studies and FDA 510(k) activities, building on a platform the company says has already been developed and validated.