Announcing the Winner of the 2016 FDA Naloxone App Competition

A total of 45 submissions were reviewed by our team of judges from FDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. While we received many thoughtful and innovative submissions, a single winning team was selected to take home the cash prize of $40,000. We are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2016 FDA Naloxone App Competition is OD Help by Team Pwrdby, a small startup based in Venice, California.

OD Help’s concept is a simple, easy-to-use mobile app designed to connect potential opioid overdose victims with a crowd-sourced network of naloxone carriers. OD Help can easily be tailored for use in rural or urban areas by expanding or contracting the radius within which naloxone carriers are sought. An additional innovative feature of OD Help is the optional interface with a breathing monitor to detect when a victim’s breathing rate is dangerously low, a sign of an opioid overdose. Hence, if the victim is alone and unable to call for help, OD Help will detect the diminished breathing and alert a naloxone carrier of the potential overdose. Other features of OD Help include: only alerting people in one’s support network and allowing naloxone carriers to disable alerts when they are unable to respond. The app also provides instructions on how to correctly diagnose an overdose and administer naloxone and helps contact emergency medical services when help is required.

Team Pwrdby’s multi-disciplinary team was: Jared Sheehan, Dr. Talib Omer, Daniel Bouganim, Chris Rovin, Suresh Mohan, Ben Dukes, Oumayma Raimi, Andress Anantharaju, Grace Tidwell and Courtney Crockett. View the OD Help app video.

We would also like to congratulate the second highest scoring submission, NalNow by TeamMIT. TeamMIT, a group of MIT alumni, is represented by Dr. Hattie Chung, Grace Young, Sinchan Banerjee, Rodrigo Ipince and Emily Zhao. View the NalNow app video.

We thank all the public health innovators who enthusiastically participated in the 2016 FDA Naloxone App Competition! App developers interested in further developing their concepts are encouraged to seek support through NIDA’s Small Business Innovation Research grant program.