Ascendant Dx Named Social Impact Finalist at SXSW Eco

Ascendant Dx of Springdale has been selected as a finalist for the 2016 South by Southwest Eco Startup Showcase and will pitch its cancer screening tool Oct. 12 at the Austin Convention Center.

The SXSW Eco Startup Showcase is a startup pitch competition exhibiting clean-technology and social-impact startups from around the world.

This year, there are 48 finalists in the categories of social impact, energy, water, food, agriculture, recycling and software/the internet of things.

Ascendant, a clinical-stage diagnostics company focused on diagnosis and treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases in women and children, is one of eight finalists in the social impact category.

The company will present Melody, an early-detection breast cancer screening tool that Ascendant CEO Omid Moghadam sees as having the potential for global impact.

He pointed to data from the World Cancer Research Fund International that show there are about 2 million new breast cancer cases diagnosed each year worldwide, and only about 300,000 of them are in the U.S.

“The U.S. has a very large and sophisticated breast cancer screening infrastructure in place. And, even with the billions of dollars spent on this infrastructure and annual spending of $8 billion, we only screen 40 percent of eligible women for breast cancer,” Moghadam said.

“The rest of the world cannot afford the U.S. style of infrastructure,” he added. “The social impact of an inexpensive, accurate and fast breast cancer test like Melody is very large, and it would lead to earlier detection of breast cancer, which translates into savings lives and costs worldwide.”

The Startup Showcase is in its fifth year, and it’s not the first time a northwest Arkansas company has made the finals.

Recycled Hydro Solutions Inc. of Rogers was named as a 2015 finalist in the water category. RHS designs and manufactures water-conservation products.