Monon Bioventures wins Innovation of the Year – Scientific Breakthrough Mira Award

Monon Bioventures, a hearing loss treatment innovator, received the Innovation of the Year – Scientific Breakthrough award during TechPoint’s 17th annual Mira Awards honoring the best of tech in Indiana.

Monon Bioventures has revolutionized the world of hearing loss and the drugs and devices used to treat it by creating a new biotechnology that could have a dramatic impact on those with inner ear disorders and offer the science a quantum leap forward. In partnership with Dr. Karl Koehler at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Monon Bioventures is now literally able to grow a functional mouse ear from stem cells in just 60 days.

It may sound funny, but the “ear-in-a-dish” technology is a tremendous scientific breakthrough for a healthcare industry — hearing loss — that is almost entirely focused on and dominated by medical devices. The Mira Awards judges see the vast potential this breakthrough represents, not only for the people it will help and improve lives, but for the blockbuster potential it could have for Indiana workers and the state’s economy should its successful commercialization create a new market segment.

TechPoint, the growth initiative for Indiana’s tech ecosystem, honored Indiana’s best companies, entrepreneurs, educators, and other leaders for their technology excellence and innovation at The Westin in downtown Indianapolis during the 17th annual Mira Awards gala presented by Angie’s List, Interactive Intelligence, and Salesforce.

A total of 17 award winners and seven runners-up were chosen from the 98 outstanding companies, organizations, and individuals who were selected as nominees this year out of the 168 applications received highlighting achievements during the 2015 calendar year.

Forty independent, volunteer judges spent more than 700 total hours reviewing and ranking applications, interviewing nominees, and selecting this year’s winners. Judges included company founders, CEOs and presidents; CTOs, CIOs and software developers; professors and chancellors from Indiana universities; design, human resources and sales professionals, and a variety of other subject matter experts.

Browse photos from the event in TechPoint’s Facebook albums and watch videos on TechPoint’s YouTube channel.

The Mira Awards — named after a variable star thousands of times brighter than the Earth’s sun — represent the best of tech in Indiana each year.