Nine Finalists Will Compete for $430,000 at the New York State Innovation Summit held on October 27-28, 2026 in Buffalo
Annual Summit Gathers New York’s Technology Leaders, Manufacturers, Researchers, Entrepreneurs, and Investors who are Shaping the Next Era of American Innovation
Empire State Development (ESD) today announced nine finalists for the ninth annual Commercialization Competition, which will take place October 27-28, 2026, at the Buffalo Convention Center during the New York State Innovation Summit. The competition is part of the Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund, supported by ESD and administered by FuzeHub.
The finalists will present their business plans to a panel of judges and a live audience for a chance to receive one of four awards totaling $430,000. The winner will receive $150,000, the runner-up $110,000, and two additional finalists $85,000 each.
The New York State Innovation Summit brings together companies, researchers, manufacturers, investors and economic development partners to explore emerging technologies and advances in production. This year’s program will feature biotechnology, new materials, energy innovation and artificial intelligence, with discussions on technology convergence, commercialization and manufacturing sustainability.
During the Summit, finalists will demonstrate the commercialization potential of their products or technologies. Award funds must be used to improve an existing prototype or go-to-market strategy, helping recipients pursue additional investment and customers and advance toward commercialization.
Empire State Development President, CEO and Commissioner Hope Knight, “New York’s innovation economy depends on helping promising technologies move from the lab to the marketplace. Together with our partners, ESD is helping entrepreneurs strengthen prototypes, attract investment, and bring new solutions closer to market. This year’s finalists reflect the breadth of talent across New York, and I look forward to seeing them compete at the Innovation Summit in Buffalo.”
“The Commercialization Competition finalists have worked hard to get here,” said Patty Rechberger, Innovation Fund Manager at FuzeHub. “By the time they present at the Summit, they may have spent years refining their prototypes and commercialization plans. These are some of the best ideas coming out of New York State, and it is always super exciting to help them take that next step.”
The Innovation Summit offers opportunities to connect entrepreneurs with potential customers, investors and support professionals, and to learn how new technologies are being developed and commercialized across New York. Registration is open, and the full agenda is available on the Summit’s website.
Watch the video announcement here: https://youtu.be/qdkrGJTVVKM?si=l9p77WOkKrePe4kb
The nine finalists, listed alphabetically, are:
Axenica Bioscience (Western New York)
Axenica Bioscience – Manufacturing a Living Catalog of Contemporary, Characterized Viral Reference Materials
Accurate infectious disease testing depends on a simple question: can a diagnostic test properly detect the viruses circulating today? Yet diagnostic developers and laboratories often rely on older reference strains that may not reflect current viral diversity. When natural sequence changes affect the region a test is designed to recognize, infections can be missed. A false-negative result can delay treatment and infection-control decisions, allowing consequences to compound beyond one patient. Axenica Bioscience is building a system to close this clinical-readiness gap. Through its Clinical Isolate Partner Network (CIPN), Axenica will source contemporary viral isolates and convert each specimen into one manufactured, highly characterized and traceable reference lot. Its “One Source, One Lot” model gives diagnostic developers, clinical laboratories and other infectious-disease organizations a common, contemporary material against which to evaluate performance. As new strains are collected, Axenica’s living catalog will continuously refresh the biology available for testing, helping the industry identify strain-dependent blind spots before they become public-health failures.
CarbonCLAIR (New York City)
Commercial Metal Scale-Up of CarbonCLAIR’s Mobile Air Treatment Platform
Construction and infrastructure work can create high concentrations of dust, fumes, and odors that affect workers, nearby communities, and project schedules. CarbonCLAIR is developing a mobile air-treatment system that captures polluted air near the source, filters particulate matter, treats selected fumes through liquid scrubbing, and monitors conditions in real time. CarbonCLAIR has progressed from laboratory research into field testing in active construction, infrastructure, and community air-quality environments across New York. Its high-flow prototype has operated at approximately 5,500 cubic feet per minute while using about 2 kilowatts of power, demonstrating the potential for high-volume air treatment with relatively low energy demand. FuzeHub support would help CarbonCLAIR replace its current wood-framed prototype with a durable metal platform designed for stronger airflow, longer duct runs, repeated deployment, and future chemical and plasma-activated treatment. The goal is to turn a field-tested prototype into a repeatable, New York-made commercial service for construction, infrastructure, and other high-exposure environments.
CaroRhythm (New York City)
CaroRhythm First-in-Patient Prototype Validation
The current post-stroke standard of care is a virtual nurse follow-up after survivors are discharged from the hospital. Survivors are most vulnerable to recurrent stroke within the month after their initial event, yet they and their care partners have no way of proactively monitoring for recurrence risk. CaroRhythm is developing a non-invasive wearable device to track stroke risk indicators and provide survivors, care partners, and clinicians with real-time notifications of stroke onset. CaroRhythm brings continuity of care to stroke survivors by giving them the information necessary to seek care before physical symptoms are present. Early detection decreases the likelihood of long-term disability due to stroke, and every minute saved prevents 1.9 million neurons from dying. The World Stroke Organization predicted in 2025 that 25% of the global population will have a stroke in their lifetime. CaroRhythm could be the critical secondary prevention monitor for the 500 million people who will have a recurrent stroke.
Eggstraordinary (Southern Tier)
Commercialization of Eggiyo by Eggstraordinary LLC
Busy mornings often force a choice between convenience and nutrition, pushing many people toward sugary cereals or skipping breakfast altogether. Eggstraordinary is changing that with Eggiyo, the first egg-based breakfast cereal designed to deliver the nutrition of a whole egg — without having to crack one. Built on egg as its protein source, Eggiyo is grain-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free, offering a familiar breakfast format with a nutritional profile closer to eggs than to traditional cereal. The product has already shown its potential, winning the American Egg Board’s 2025 Eggcelerator competition and validating it through consumer testing and pilot-scale manufacturing. The company is now aiming for commercial launch, working to bring Eggiyo from pilot batches to retail shelves. By reimagining a bowl of cereal as a source of complete protein rather than empty carbohydrates, Eggiyo is poised to introduce a new breakfast category, one where speed and nutrition are no longer at odds and where busy families can trust what’s in the bowl.
Lucent EMS Solutions (Long Island)
Lucent EMS Solutions
Every day, emergency medical responders spend up to an hour typing out patient care reports after a single call. After long overnight shifts responding to multiple emergencies, recalling precise details becomes difficult, leading to exhaustion and keeping ambulances off the road longer between calls. Lucent EMS Solutions is building an automated, hands free sidekick that documents emergency calls more efficiently. Designed specifically for EMS first responders, the AI powered tool captures essential patient details and treatment steps during a call, instantly drafting compliant reports for review. By eliminating tedious manual paperwork, this technology helps first responders finish report writing in minutes rather than hours, allowing ambulance crews to return to service faster, reduce burnout, and focus on high quality patient care.
ProViZiGen (New York City)
Development of engineered polymer gel to enable sustained and targeted delivery of novel therapeutic for post‑traumatic osteoarthritis
ProViZiGen is advancing HydroGEN™, a first-in-class injectable biologic designed to prevent post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA) following joint injury. Osteoarthritis affects millions of people worldwide, yet no approved therapy currently exists that can prevent or modify disease progression after injury. HydroGEN combines a thermoresponsive protein hydrogel with a novel therapeutic protein to provide sustained delivery directly within the joint, targeting inflammation, cartilage degeneration, and disease progression at their source. Funding from this award will support critical preclinical development activities, including product optimization, efficacy validation, safety studies, and manufacturing readiness. These efforts will generate the data needed to advance HydroGEN toward IND-enabling studies and future clinical trials. Founded to commercialize breakthrough protein-engineering innovations, ProViZiGen is dedicated to transforming orthopedic care from reactive symptom management to proactive disease prevention. The company is supported by a team of experts in biomaterials, protein engineering, orthopedic medicine, regulatory strategy, and commercialization, with collaborations spanning leading institutions including NYU and Yale. By developing a therapy capable of preventing PTOA before irreversible joint damage occurs, ProViZiGen aims to improve patient outcomes, reduce healthcare costs, and preserve mobility and quality of life for athletes, military personnel, and millions of individuals at risk of developing osteoarthritis following injury.
PSSP Technologies (Long Island)
Continuous Hormone Monitoring From Passive Sweat
A woman in her forties who stops sleeping, loses words mid-sentence, and no longer recognizes her own moods will usually be told her blood test came back normal. It probably did. Hormones swing hour to hour during perimenopause, and a single morning draw catches one moment of a moving target. Perimenopause remains the only hormonal disorder not diagnosed by measuring hormones. PSSP Technologies is developing OVAI, a skin-worn patch that measures hormones continuously from passive sweat, without a blood draw. The recognition chemistry is field-exclusively licensed from the University of Leicester. This award funds the step before any device: proving the chemistry detects estradiol and progesterone in real human sweat, in perimenopausal and menopausal women, the population hardest to measure. Paired sweat and serum samples collected at a Garden City obstetrics and gynecology practice will be quantified against laboratory reference methods. In NSF I-Corps interviews with 69 women and 28 physicians, 83 percent of women already paying for hormone testing spent roughly $200 a month out of pocket for answers that arrive one snapshot at a time. The demand is established. What has been missing is a device women can eventually wear.
Resolvia Biosciences (Capital Region)
Resolve to Solve: A New Approach to Treat Chronic Inflammation
Chronic inflammation is the leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for 3 out of every 5 deaths. Current therapies that dominate healthcare often cause severe complications and carry significant risk of adverse effects and even death. They also fail to cure disease and require continuous treatment. Resolvia Biosciences is a biomedical research venture translating discoveries in natural pathways that limit inflammation into new therapeutic strategies for treating chronic inflammatory diseases. Resolvia’s lead approach combines the lipid Resolvin E1 with the FDA-approved drug cyclosporine to create a dual-acting therapy that both blocks inflammation and repairs damaged tissue. Advantages over current therapies include shorter treatments, reduced toxicity, and better outcomes. Resolvia is committed to partnering with clinical and translational innovators to bring a safer, smarter immune therapy to patients in need.
SUPERClean Glass (Long Island)
Waterless Self-Cleaning Solar Panels: A Customer-Site Validation Tool for Performance and Payback
Dust and dirt reduce the output of solar panels, creating maintenance costs and environmental impact problems for utility-scale solar fields especially in dry regions where potable water is scarce. SUPERClean Glass has developed a waterless self-cleaning technology that uses an electric field to lift dust from solar-panel glass without moving parts, damaging physical scrubbing, or costly water. This project helps take the technology to market by building a transportable test & demonstration system that can be deployed at prospective customer sites. Side-by-side solar panels would measure how much power is being lost to local dust and soiling, how much performance SUPERClean’s technology restores, and the energy gains which provide an attractive financial payback. The system would give solar developers and operators confidence that the company’s technology works by providing site-specific evidence before committing to a larger commercial deployment. By making solar panels more productive while reducing cleaning costs, labor, and water consumption, SUPERClean Glass aims to remove one of the persistent operating costs facing solar power generation.
The Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund, with more than $1 million available annually, supports activities that spur technology development and commercialization across New York State. FuzeHub administers the fund as part of its role as ESD’s designated statewide Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) center. For more information, contact Patty Rechberger, Innovation Fund Manager, at [email protected] or visit the Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund website.
About Empire State Development
Empire State Development is New York’s chief economic development agency, and promotes business growth, job creation, and greater economic opportunity throughout the state. With offices in each of the state’s 10 regions, ESD oversees the Regional Economic Development Councils, supports broadband equity through the ConnectALL office, and is growing the workforce of tomorrow through the Office of Strategic Workforce Development. The agency engages with emerging and next generation industries like clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing looking to grow in New York State, operates a network of assistance centers to help small businesses grow and succeed, and promotes the state’s world class tourism destinations through I LOVE NY. For more information, please visit esd.ny.gov, and connect with ESD on LinkedIn, Facebook, and X.
About FuzeHub
FuzeHub is a not-for-profit organization that connects New York’s small and mid-sized manufacturing companies to the resources, programs, and expertise they need for technology commercialization, innovation, and business growth. Through our custom assessment, matching, and referral platform, we help companies navigate New York’s robust network of industry experts at Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers, universities, economic development organizations, and other providers. FuzeHub is the statewide New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program (MEP) center, supported by Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology & Innovation (NYSTAR).
For more information on FuzeHub, visit FuzeHub.
About Jeff Lawrence
During his more than 20 years at the Center for Economic Growth, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) affiliate in the Capital Region where he served as executive vice-president and MEP center director, Jeff Lawrence directed programs of direct assistance to manufacturers and technology companies to increase their competitiveness. He is remembered for being an invaluable and generous mentor to many in the area’s business community and a tireless advocate for manufacturing innovation throughout New York.