The Great Cornea Challenge is On!
Calling eye care innovators and entrepreneurs! If you believe in the right to sight and want to help save or restore sight for millions of people who lack quality corneal eye care, we’d like to meet you – and help you reach your goals!
The Great Cornea Challenge aims to find innovative, affordable, and sustainable solutions to overcome the obstacles that prevent quality eye care from reaching people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs.)
We are seeking to invest or make a grant of up to $100,000 to help eradicate corneal blindness in LMICs.
The Problem
Over 12.7 million people are blind due to corneal injury or disease, and most of them live in LMICs where access to high-quality, affordable, and accessible eye care is limited.
Finding A Solution
KeraLink International (KLI) is responding to this challenge, and we invite you to join us. We have developed a holistic Prevention, Early Detection, and Novel Treatment (P.E.N.) approach to rewriting the narrative of corneal blindness. We seek to discover, develop, and deploy innovative technology, products, and/or services that will do one or more of the following three things:
Prevent corneal blindness:
The best way to cure corneal blindness is to stop people from becoming blind. For example, we are already looking at ways to bring low-cost protective eyewear to farm workers in India to prevent corneal abrasions that can lead to blindness. Have other ideas? Let us know!
Support early detection and treatment of corneal conditions:
Some conditions, like keratoconus, where the cornea thins and gradually bulges outward into a cone shape, are not yet preventable. Others, like keratitis, an inflammation of the cornea, in most cases, can be easily treated if diagnosed early. We want to support diagnostic tools that can help in the early detection and treatment of corneal diseases including keratoconus and keratitis. We are also looking for topical medications that might treat multiple forms of keratitis.
Are you developing an anterior ophthalmic imaging device that could benefit from our years of experience in this market? Let us know! Do you have any other ideas on detecting and treating corneal conditions? Let’s bring them to life!
Introduce novel treatments:
Human tissue corneal transplantation or keratoplasty is over a hundred years old, but still inaccessible to over 58% of the world’s population. KLI believes alternatives to human tissue transplantation could deliver a “see change” for millions of people. We are working on developing revolutionary advances in advance in corneal regeneration. Are you working on ways to make sight-restoring keratoplasty more accessible for all? We want to support your work!
Guidelines for Innovators
1. Your technologies, products and/or services must address the cornea. If your work has the potential to extend its application beyond the cornea—all the better! However, since our mission is to eradicate corneal blindness, your idea must directly relate to corneal health.
2. Whatever you are developing must address the needs of people living in LMICs. Our years running eye banks in the United States have taught us that what might work well in high-income countries won’t necessarily work in LMICs. We will only support innovations that serve people in LMICs.
3. You must be committed to pricing for affordability in LMICs. You must be committed to working with us to ensure that those with the least econonomic means have access to the products you’re developing.
Resources and Support Available
Not sure if your idea, technology, product or service serves people in LMICs? Reach out to us!
As a corneal technology accelerator, we offer more than just investments and/or grant funds. Our staff has years of experience working in LMICs. We will work with you on developing and deploying your technology.
Are you wondering how to get regulatory approval for a medical device in a LMIC? Need help figuring out how to get products manufactured and distributed in LMICs? We can help. We will be there to help you every step of the way.
Are you worried about revealing your great idea too early? Don’t worry. We know that intellectual property is valuable. You can reach out to us without revealing anything that you might think would constitute a trade secret or, upon your request, we will offer you a non-disclosure agreement.
Why KeraLink International? Why now?
We believe market mechanisms are the best approach to solving 21st-century problems like corneal disease. We are willing to support ideas that traditional venture capitalists would not.
