Team Wins $40,000 in Naloxone App Competition

The winner of a $40,000 cash prize in the 2016 FDA Naloxone App Competition was OD Help, developed by Team Pwrdby, a small startup based in Venice, CA. FDA associate commissioner for public health strategy and analysis Peter Lurie says the prize competition wanted to find innovative solutions to the problem of how to rapidly connect naloxone carriers to a person experiencing an opioid overdose. Writing in an FDA Voice blog post, Lurie says that over 150 teams registered for the competition and more than 100 individuals participated in a two-day code-a-thon at the agency’s campus.

Judges from FDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reviewed 45 submissions and chose OD Help, a simple, easy-to-use mobile app to connect potential opioid overdose victims with a crowd-sourced network of naloxone carriers.

Honorable mention for a second high-performing submission went to NalNow, from Team MIT.