Children’s Health Initiative
Children and families should not have to wait for promising solutions to become accessible.
The Catalytic Impact Foundation’s Children’s Health Initiative accelerates discoveries for children with unmet medical needs. We invest catalytic capital to unlock the full life-changing potential of biomedical research. Strategic investments today will improve lives for generations.
All returns are reinvested and reserved for future impact under our regenerative philanthropy model.
The need for change is clear. We must address the realities of childhood disease and mental health.
Cancer is the
leading cause of death by disease for children.
Only
drugs were approved to treat childhood cancer in 40 years.
Suicide is the
leading cause of death among youth aged 15-29.
Around the world,
children are estimated to develop a cancer each year.
youths aged 10-19 globally experience a mental disorder.
of youths in the United States could not access mental health care.
Children facing devastating medical needs deserve better, more tolerable treatments and cures. You can help bring these discoveries within reach.
Imagine if your donation could help create a therapy that receives FDA approval and is available to children all around the world. And then what if your gift did that again, and again, and again?
Projected Portfolio Outcomes
The projected impact of our children’s health investment portfolio, in terms of lives improved. These modeled numbers aggregate our companies’ achievements in morbidity reduction, disability prevention, earlier diagnosis, family burden reduction, and more.
12.93 M
annual potential lives impacted
410,500
annual potential lives saved
12.52 M
annual potential patients with improved quality of life
Children's Health Innovation Prizes
The CIF hosts the Children’s Health Innovation Prize periodically to celebrate pediatric healthcare innovation and award preeminent startups with catalytic investment.
Read about our 2026 Children’s Health Challenge here. Three cutting-edge companies received awards: Regatta Bio received the CIF Innovation Prize in Children’s Health, and Siloam Vision was the runner-up. Siloam Vision also received the Hood Foundation Pediatric Acceleration Award, and Tympanogen was the runner-up.
“We need to do a better job of equipping those of us who are parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles — those who are supposed to be the trusted adults in kids’ lives — with how to help not only navigate and protect them, but also bolster them and buttress them in this moment.” Chelsea Clinton, PhD, Vice Chair of the Clinton Foundation
Children’s Health in Action
These CIF-backed companies are tackling under-served needs in children’s health: the safety and longevity of childhood transplant procedures, rare disease diagnostics, and eye health in prematurely-born babies.
Regatta Bio
A new generation of Treg therapies
Regatta Bio is advancing the next generation of regulatory T cell (Treg) therapies to address some of the most pressing challenges in immune health, including chronic Graft-versus-Host Disease (cGVHD), solid organ rejection, and autoimmune disorders.
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Conditions like cGVHD remain critically underexamined and can claim lives even after successful bone marrow transplants and similar therapies. They are often treated with blunt immunosuppression, which can leave patients, many of them children, with long-term side effects.
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Regatta’s Reg-003 Treg therapy is designed for maximum efficiency, targeting patients already on immunosuppressive drugs and resistant to immunosuppressants and steroids. They make up a large and vulnerable group of patients with immunity-mediated conditions.
“[A patient’s] leukemia was cured, but he died of GVHD anyway. This experience changed my life, and I decided to focus my career on treating GVHD and other immune-driven diseases, because every year, thousands and thousands of children die of immune-driven diseases.” Dr. Leslie S. Kean, Founder
Tympanogen
Transforming eardrum repair
Tympanogen is developing the Perf-Fix™ Otologic Gel Patch, a novel gel system that serves as a nonsurgical eardrum perforation treatment, which can replace traditional tympanoplasties with a clinic-based procedure.
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Eardrum perforations and hearing loss are particularly disruptive to the well-being, development, and learning of pediatric patients. Current treatments are surgical and invasive, incurring anesthesia exposure, greater hearing-loss risks, and other complications.
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Tympanogen’s Gel Patch has the potential to transform eardrum perforation treatment, ensuring that affected children no longer need to undergo an invasive surgery and face risks of infection and surgical complications.
“It looks like a pretty minor problem — just a hole in the eardrum — but leaving these perforations untreated can lead to recurring ear infections and hearing loss, which, for kids, leads to speech development issues, learning issues, and just an overall decreased quality of life.” Elaine Horn-Ranney, PhD, Founder
Siloam Vision
Reducing preventable childhood blindness
Siloam Vision is developing a line of products — including the iCam-OCT™, a scanner designed for high-resolution images of the retina across patients of all ages — to revolutionize the treatment of Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), the leading cause of childhood blindness, and similar conditions.
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ROP is a major cause of blindness, particularly in regions lacking access to quality eye care. There is a lack of low-cost equipment and software solutions capable of reaching diverse areas of the world.
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Siloam Vision has the potential to broaden access to quality equipment to streamline the diagnosis and treatment of ROP, allowing a smaller number of physicians to tend to a larger number of patients and preventing severe cases of ROP from being missed.
“My clinic is full of patients who have treatable eye diseases at birth that weren’t detected until they caused vision loss.” Dr. J. Peter Campbell, Founder
Madison Scientific
Supporting treatment of hydrocephalus
MadSci’s SmartShunt™ System is designed to optimize management of patients with hydrocephalus. MadSci's platform technology pairs state-of-the-art electromechanical valve technology with intelligent sensing and algorithms to enable personalized and informed management of neurologic conditions
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Hydrocephalus patients depend on cerebral shunts, which fail frequently and risk avoidable hospitalizations. Up to 70% of related admissions are unnecessary. MadSci transforms hydrocephalus treatment with a smarter, integrated solution.
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Tens of thousands of shunt procedures are administered annually in the United States alone. MadSci’s SmartShunt™ has already had initial trial success, drastically reducing catheter obstructions in shunt procedures.
“[Our clinical co-founders] found a mechanism to treat a true unmet need in neurosurgery." Dr. Tyler Wanke, Founder
Our Children’s Health and Pediatric Rare Disease portfolio is 14 companies strong. Learn about the rest of these cutting-edge companies below.
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Applied Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a potential treatment for Galactosemia, a devastating, inherited, rare disorder that affects how the body metabolizes a type of sugar called galactose. Galactosemia has no known cure or approved treatment.This disorder can greatly affect children’s development, causing severe and permanent motor, speech and cognitive deficiencies; cataracts; tremor; and ovarian insufficiency.
Applied Therapeutics also is developing a potential treatment for Diabetic Cardiomyopathy, a rapidly progressing degenerative disorder that affects 17%-24% of people with diabetes and causes the heart to become fibrotic, leading to heart failure. There is no current treatment for this condition. Applied Therapeutics’ drug candidate presents an opportunity to potentially halt disease progression and prevent worsening of the heart damage.
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Deck Therapeutics is pioneering the new field of “acute omega-3 fatty acid therapeutics”. Emulsions of our proprietary semi-synthetic omega-3 compounds are administered intravenously and exert an immediate effect on multiple molecular pathways critical for controlling cellular apoptosis and necrosis.
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Melio is developing a rapid, comprehensive bloodborne pathogen testing platform that can identify 99% of the most common pathogens in hours. Melio aims to profoundly reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics to improve outcomes, beginning with neonates in the NICU.
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OtoNexus Medical Technologies’ state-of-the-art advanced ultrasound otoscope analyzes the presence and type of effusion so that primary care pediatricians can instantly and accurately assess middle ear infections (otitis media). This type of information has never been available before without an invasive procedure.
Clinical studies show diagnostic error rates averaging 50 percent, particularly in the vital key differentiation of whether or not to prescribe an antibiotic.
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NeurAxis is an Indiana-based medical technology firm working to develop medical devices in the emerging science of neuromodulation.
They have market approval for the first-ever therapy (IB-Stim®) for functional abdominal pain, associated with IBS, in children. Through innovation and research, NeurAxis is also working to expand the number of approved indications for this technology, including pediatric functional nausea and post-concussion syndrome - conditions for which there are currently few effective treatments.
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Oncoheroes Biosciences is a ground-breaking biotech company 100% focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing new therapies for children and adolescents with cancer. We intend to become the global leader in delivering new pediatric oncology drugs.
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Starlight Cardiovascular is developing much needed tools and devices to treat pediatric congenital heart defects (CHDs). Approximately 1.3 million babies are born each year with a CHD. Most of the tools used to treat these children were designed for adult conditions and anatomy, limiting their utility for pediatric patients. Starlight Cardiovascular is developing a portfolio of devices designed and tested specifically for pediatric CHD with the goals of improving morbidity, mortality, and access to care.
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The vision of Triaj is to revolutionize the diagnosis, treatment, and care of patients through an advanced clinical decision support system for healthcare professionals, which provides best practice, patient treatment which is available anywhere, anytime as a cloud-based, communications network solution.
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Wavely Diagnostics is developing a smartphone-based ear tip allowing parents to monitor their children and make more informed choices about when to see a doctor, and support healthcare providers with data from a suite of immediately available remote diagnostics during virtual care visits.
With Wavely Diagnostics’ first app, a standard mobile phone can tell if there is fluid in the ear that might require a doctor visit. With Wavely, you can be sure to treat every ear ache right.
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PyrAmes has developed a unique sensor platform that provides continuous blood pressure monitoring in a lightweight, comfortable, wireless package. With its paper-thin, flexible sensor and compact wristwatch form factor, it is an alternative to arterial lines and inflatable cuff-based blood pressure monitoring systems.
Read about all the innovative companies in our Children’s Health portfolio here.
Media
A fireside chat with Chelsea Clinton, PhD, on children’s health in the digital age, moderated by Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Founders of the five finalist companies selected for the 2026 Children’s Health Challenge, recognized for their work in pediatric innovation.
Your donation to Catalytic Impact Foundation becomes an investment in emerging life science companies, moving science closer to treatments.
When we are successful, our fund grows, our portfolio of investments grows, and more kids can access the cures and treatments they need to live healthier, longer lives. We are grateful for your support.