PMWC 2027 · Silicon Valley
Atul Butte Company Competition
The PMWC Most Promising Company Competition returns in honor of Atul Butte, celebrating evidence-first startups that turn data into care and giving rising companies a stage before leading investors, clients, and partners.
In memoriam
A meaningful check, and a much bigger stage.
The winner is announced on stage at the end of competition day. The prize is brought to the PMWC community by OpenEvidence.
Who can apply
Built for rising precision medicine companies
Privately held startups from Seed through Series A are invited to apply. The competition launched in 2009 to spotlight emerging companies with the science, team, and execution plan to change care.
Diagnostics
Tests, biomarkers, platforms, and clinical tools that improve detection, stratification, monitoring, or treatment selection.
Therapeutics
Drug, biologic, cell, gene, or platform approaches that address a clear unmet need with differentiated evidence.
Health Tech
Products and infrastructure that make precision care more actionable, scalable, measurable, or accessible.
AI & Computational Medicine
The new category for evidence-backed computational platforms that translate data into clinical or therapeutic decisions.
Competition format
One day. Two stages. Three finalists.
The format is deliberately fast. Companies must explain the need, evidence, product, and path forward without a fog machine or a 47-slide origin story.
Submit the company
Applications are free. Selected companies will be published and promoted in December 2026.
Semi-finals
Each selected company receives a 5-minute presentation followed by 2.5 minutes of judge Q&A.
Top three announced
The finalists advance to the afternoon finals and present on the PMWC main stage.
Winner and $20,000 prize
The winner is announced live and receives the OpenEvidence-sponsored award check.
Final-round judges
Investors and builders who knew Atul
The finals are judged by people who understand both Atul’s standards and the unglamorous work required to move a promising idea into patient impact.
Alex Morgan
Khosla Ventures
Rowan Chapman
BEVC
Travis Zack
OpenEvidence
2027
The name behind the competition
A builder who made data answer to patients
Atul Butte, MD, PhD (1969–2025) was a physician scientist and biomedical informatics pioneer who helped define modern evidence-first precision medicine, showing how large-scale clinical and molecular data could be translated into decisions that improve patient care.
He held leadership roles at Stanford University and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, including Chief of the Division of Systems Medicine, with faculty appointments spanning Pediatrics and Medicine and a courtesy appointment in Computer Science.
At UCSF, he became the inaugural Director of the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute and served as UC Health’s inaugural Chief Data Scientist, helping unify data-driven approaches across the University of California academic medical centers.
Beyond academia, Atul was a founder and mentor focused on real-world clinical impact. He co-founded Personalis, NuMedii, and Carmenta and inspired a generation of builders to combine rigorous evidence with practical translation.
Competition archive
Previous winners
Since 2009, PMWC has used this competition to put promising companies in front of the precision medicine community before the market had fully decided what they would become.
Previous winner
Abreos Biosciences
A precision medicine company developing laboratory-based and near-patient tests for precision dosing of biologic drugs. Its Veritope™ portfolio enables direct monitoring of monoclonal antibody drug concentrations.
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Previous winner
Immusoft
Immusoft’s mission is to reprogram patient cells into miniature drug factories designed to engraft and survive for decades in the body.
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Previous winner
Two Pore Guys
A solid-state nanopore diagnostic platform designed to detect nucleic acids, proteins, and other analytes with lab-equipment performance in a glucometer-style system.
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Previous winner
Gritstone Oncology
Gritstone deploys a tumor-antigen prediction model based on patient tumor sequencing and mass spectrometry to deliver antigens as personalized therapeutic vaccines alongside checkpoint inhibitors.
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Previous winner
HealthMyne
An imaging informatics company focused on image-data mining within clinical workflow. Its tools automate data capture and structured reporting on an FDA-cleared diagnostic platform.
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Previous winner
Insilico Medicine
A bioinformatics company using genomics, big-data analysis, and deep learning for in silico drug discovery and drug repurposing in aging and age-related diseases.
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Previous winner
Accel Diagnostics
AccelDx developed the pScreen™ platform, pairing a single-use, credit-card-sized blood test with a smartphone application to detect disease-specific biomarker levels at the point of need.
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Previous winner
T2 Biosystems
T2 Biosystems developed a rapid, sensitive diagnostic platform. Its T2MR technology was designed for direct detection at speed to support more effective clinical decision-making.
IPO · August 2014Visit website
Previous winner
ElMindA
ElMindA’s BNA™ platform was developed to visualize and evaluate neurophysiological brain-network composition, connectivity, synchronization, and function at high resolution.
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Previous winner
Horizon Discovery
Horizon Discovery developed a translational genomics platform and drug-discovery toolbox to support therapies targeted to the genetic features driving an individual patient’s cancer.
IPO · March 2014Visit website
Previous winner
QuantaLife
QuantaLife commercialized the Droplet Digital™ PCR system, a cost-effective high-resolution platform for validating next-generation sequencing discoveries and developing molecular diagnostic tests.
Acquired by Bio-Rad · October 2011Visit website
Previous winner
Applied Immune Technologies
AIT developed platforms for identifying and validating MHC-based targets and therapeutic human recombinant T-cell receptor-like antibodies that bind intracellular peptide/MHC complexes.
Acquired by Adicet Bio · January 2016Visit website
Previous winner
Boston Heart Diagnostics
A heart-health management company providing integrated diagnostics and patient-management solutions for cardiovascular disease risk assessment, monitoring, and treatment.
Acquired by Eurofins · December 2014Visit websiteApplications closing
Put the evidence on stage.
Selected companies gain visibility across the PMWC community, present before investors and potential partners, and compete for a $20,000 award. Almost all spots are already committed.
No application fee. Selected presenters must register for PMWC. Travel and lodging are not included.
