Innovation is transforming the future of health care, and this year’s Shark Tank Pitch Competition at the 2025 AGA Tech Summit showcases five groundbreaking startups poised to make a significant impact. These finalists — selected from a highly competitive field — are pioneering solutions that address critical challenges in patient care, diagnostics, and treatment.
Take a peek at our finalists’ elevator pitches then register for the Tech Summit to see the full presentations.
AI-Lumen Medical
Problem: Conventional endoscopes can miss 20–25% of polyps, and many solutions are either too expensive, too complicated, wired, or potentially traumatic to the mucosa.
Solution: AI-Lumen Medical’s retroview camera system offers a safer, more effective, and cost-effective solution for enhancing polyp detection during colonoscopies. The device attaches to the distal end of a colonoscope, providing real-time, wireless video images of the tissue behind the haustral folds, allowing for the detection of polyps that are often missed with conventional forward-view colonoscopes.
Amplified Sciences
Problem: Given the deadly nature of pancreatic cancer — the third deadliest cancer in the U.S. — there’s an unmet need for better tests to stratify patients diagnosed with pancreatic cystic lesions to treat early-stage or potentially malignant lesions.
Solution: Amplified Sciences’ ultrasensitive diagnostic platform detects biomarker activities in minute volumes of fluid from these cysts, helping to stratify patients into low risk or potential malignancy, reducing unneeded surgeries, providing significant cost savings, and avoiding comorbidities associated with invasive surgery or loss of organ function.
KITE Endoscopic Innovations
Problem: Endoscopic Ultrasound (EUS) guided biopsy has become an indispensable means of providing tissue diagnosis for GI diseases, with an estimated 300,000 procedures done annually. As physicians move from fine needle aspirations (FNA) to fine needle core biopsy (FNB), with approximately 80% being FNB needles, they need a high degree of needle flexibility, which is important when the EUS echoendoscope is in a difficult position.
Solution: The team at KITE Endoscopic Innovations has developed the Dynaflex TruCut needle, which provides several key advantages over current 3rd generation FNB needles, including a streamlined process requiring fewer needle passes to obtain core specimens, deeper insights into tumor pathology and advanced geonomic analysis with longer tissue cores, and a design that ensures it operates effectively in various endoscopic positions thereby enhancing its usability in complex procedures.
MicroSteer
Problem: Effective en-bloc removal of large or flat polyps is a crucial procedure in both treating and preventing colorectal cancer, the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide.
Solution: MicroSteer’s device facilitates semi-automated endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) by decoupling the dissecting knife from the endoscope. This allows the gastroenterologist to maneuver the knife independently, enhancing safety and effectiveness during the procedure. The intuitive interface makes the technology easy to master, supporting the treatment of early-stage cancers of the esophagus, stomach, and colon without the need for invasive surgery.
Twistomy
Problem: Ostomy patients endure significant social, emotional, and physical challenges due to the limitations of present-day wafer and pouch systems — in fact, 76% of people living with an ostomy for a minimum of three months reported leakage and 91% worried about it.
Solution: Twistomy has developed a minimally invasive continent ostomy device that allows patients with small or large bowel stomas to control their fecal stream without the need for a traditional ostomy bag. The device has a flexible internal valve, which allows it to be capped for hours at a time, reducing the risk of leakage and peristomal skin complications. This significant advancement in ostomy care provides a safer, more effective, and user-friendly solution for patients with stomas.
Be among the first to see the future of GI and engage with the innovators leading the charge. Register now to be part of the conversation moving GI Innovation forward.
