OtoSim Inc., a MaRS Innovation spin-off company, is taping an appearance on Business News Network’s The Pitch on May 22, 2012.

Louis Hui, OtoSim’s business development manager, will have 90 seconds to pitch OtoSim™ — an integrated educational system that dynamically and interactively teaches how to accurately diagnose ear diseases — to The Pitch’s panel of financiers and experts.

OtoSim™ helps medical students and current health professionals improve their knowledge base of ear pathologies while refining their otoscope technique.

Its features include:

• Realistic earform and canal
• High-resolution images to guide users through a variety of diseases
• Self-guided tutorials with detailed text-based descriptions
• Easy-to-use graphical interface that allows instructors to give immediate feedback and guidance through OtoSim’s™ integrated platform and software

The platform is so effective that a University of Toronto study demonstrated that third-year medical students’ diagnostic accuracy increased to approximately 80 per cent after just three hours of OtoSim training was added to their curriculum.

Since market introduction in September 2011, OtoSim has completed $188,000 in sales with additional sales in the pipeline. The company enjoys monthly profits .

Hui and the OtoSim team are seeking to raise $1 million to accelerate their product development pipeline and fund working capital.

About OtoSim Inc.

Dr. Vito Forte and Dr. Paolo Campisi at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) pioneered the OtoSim™ device after perceiving a systemic need among students and professionals for better tools for otoscopic traning. With a multi-disciplinary team of clinicians, educators, and engineers, they created OtoSim™ and its accompanying software to address this problem. OtoSim Inc.’s technology was brought to market with seed-funding support and services from MaRS Innovation to facilitate business and product development. Headquartered in the MaRS Discovery District, the company has also received seed-funding and R&D support from SickKids, The Health Technology Exchange (HTX), Ontario Centres of Excellence, National Research Council Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program, MaRS Discovery District’s Business Acceleration Program, and the SickKids Women’s Auxiliary. Its clients include hospitals, universities and medical schools around the world.

About The Pitch

The Pitch is an exciting new weekly show from Business News Network that hooks up Canadian entrepreneurs with the risk capitalists who are sitting on the real money—the money that brings ideas to life. During the program, start-up entrepreneurs or companies seeking to take their business to the next level will sell their business idea—and the amount of cash needed—to a panel of tough financiers and experts. The panelists will either give the pitch the green light or send the dreamers back to the drawing board. It’s a fast-paced half-hour hosted by BNN’s Andrew Bell, providing viewers with the opportunity to see how entrepreneurs perform in a high-pressure atmosphere.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, marketing and communications manager.