QMENTA - Female Entrepreneur of the Year

Company: QMENTA, Inc., Boston, MA
Company Description: QMENTA is on a mission to empower breakthroughs that make brain diseases a thing of the past through advanced neuroimaging analysis. The company’s AI-powered cloud digital platform streamlines big data aggregation, compliance, collaboration and analysis to improve outcomes for neurology research, clinical trials and clinical care faster and at lower cost and risk.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Products –11 to 2,500 Employees

Nomination Title: Dr. Vesna Prchkovska

Ten years ago Vesna Prchkovska, PhD, embarked on a journey to transform how we understand and treat brain diseases. She experienced the frustration of researchers and clinicians truly struggling to achieve real results, recognizing a huge unmet need for the field of neurology.

Along with fellow PhD candidate, Co-founder, and CTO Paulo Rodrigues, they had a dream to transform the healthcare system for brain-related diseases. This dream has transformed into the creation of QMENTA, Inc., an international AI-powered cloud based healthcare software business.

The company’s vision is to empower breakthroughs to make brain diseases a thing of the past. QMENTA’s aim was to change the way disease progression and drug efficacy are measured and how patients are diagnosed and monitored, which to date poses one of the biggest healthcare challenges for the aging societies of the world.

QMENTA’s globally scalable AI-powered cloud neuroimaging software solution arms researchers and clinicians with quantified insights about brain diseases faster, at higher quality and at lower cost. The solution facilitates compliant data collection, quality control and advanced biomarker analysis. With more than 10mn brain images processed QMENTA is making a significant impact on society by advancing innovation in neuroresearch, clinical development and care delivery.

Key achievements of the nominee leading her team include:
-Grew team to 31. Transitioned from CSO to CEO. Grew Board of Directors and hired globally experienced CCO.
-Achieved QMENTA Care Platform Family FDA 510(K) clearance as Class II Medical Device (July 2021)

Grew company and partnerships as follows:
-Reached 42+ Partnerships and Master Agreements
-3X Revenue Growth (Increase in Q1 & Q2 2021 actuals versus 2020)
-50% increase in new customer accounts in last 4 quarters (as of June 30th, 2021)
-Reached over 10M+ brain images and associated clinical data curated, categorized and managed
-Reached over 53 catalogued AI Biomarker Algorithms and over 20 new algorithms in the pipeline
-Reached co-authorship amount of 49 Scientific Publications in peer-reviewed journals and conferences, 5 Patents with 2 more in progress.
-Continued to grow Expert and Partner Network; now more than 1535+ KOLs, over 650 institutions
-Implemented Covid response / global collaborations on the QMENTA platform to reduce impact of pandemic on MS patients and progress advances against brain diseases in various therapeutic areas: The QMENTA platform served as the collaborative workspace for data collection, sharting and analysis for these initiatives.

As she crossed the incredibly challenging chasm from Academia to Industry, Vesna along with her co-founders raised over $7M in seed capital while she was an expectant mother. Vesna’s determination led her to build a state-of-the-art software platform in the cloud with advanced AI biomarker analytics, while creating strategic partnerships with leading academic, non-profit and industry organizations. Her dedication to diversity and inclusion resulted in building an incredibly talented team of over 31 employees of over 14 nationalites. Vesna has again and again demonstrated fortitude and an innate leadership ability in the life sciences, technology and healthcare space as a female entrepreneur under 40. It is this type of leadership that is driving new inroads in tackling neurological diseases, a priority global healthcare need.

QMENTA’s platform is focused on Neurological research and diseases, a huge area of unmet need. Its end-to-end capabilities including data aggregation and management, workflow and collaboration facilitation, quantitative and advanced analysis, central reading and reporting and data export / sharing which make it unique in the marketplace. As a start-up it has been important to focus on neurology, where we have specific expertise, however the platform is applicable to many other therapeutic areas particularly those requiring biomedical imaging analysis for R&D, clinical endpoints, disease progression assessments and care.

Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):

Background: Over one billion people worldwide suffer from a brain disease. Brain research and clinical trials rely on analyzing images of the brain, usually from an MRI. Collecting, managing, analyzing and collaborating on these images is really challenging. Despite over 2000 neurological clinical trials starting each year in the US alone, only 5.9% of Phase I neurology clinical trial drugs are likely to make it cross the finish line to FDA approval.

Read the blog post written by Vesna in March 2021 https://www.qmenta.com/blog/your-neuroimaging-based-clinical-trials-are-failing Neuroimaging Based Clinical Trials are Failing. How Can We Fix Them?”.
Following the landmark FDA approval of Biogen’s Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm, Vesna wrote an article on how companies can accelerate Alzheimer’s therapies to market: https://www.qmenta.com/blog/perform-retrospective-analysis-alzheimer-clinical-trials Act Now to Perform Retrospective Analysis of Past Phase II, III Alzheimer’s Clinical Trials”.

Evidence of the various Global Collaborations Sponsored on QMENTA Platform via our News Page:

https://www.qmenta.com/blog/irontract-challenge-final-phase-results IronTract Challenge – Results of the Final Phase

https://www.qmenta.com/blog/qmenta-cavs-ms-nih-study QMENTA’s AI Platform Selected for the CAVS-MS Multiple Sclerosis Biomarker Study Funded By the National Institute of Health

https://www.qmenta.com/blog/qmenta-launches-conquercovid QMENTA Launches Medical Imaging AI Initiative In COVID-19 Battle

https://www.qmenta.com/blog/making-a-difference-in-advancing-diffusion-mri-via-the-memento-challenge Making a Difference in Advancing Diffusion MRI Via the MEMENTO Challenge

https://ictusnet-sudoe.eu/en/watch-the-video-presentation-of-the-ictusnet-medical-image-analysis-platform/# QMENTA’ s neuroimaging platform powered the ICTUSnet collaborations.

https://ohbm.github.io/hackathon2021/ QMENTA sponsored the OHBM (Organization for Human Brain Mapping) June 2021 Challenge