| A new weight-loss technology being developed by
Gastric Retention Technologies (GRT) won the $50,000
grand prize in the fifth annual UC Berkeley Business
Plan Competition in April.
The firm’s novel approach to weight-loss programs
may soon allow physicians to curb their patients’
food intake and desire for food. Patients would swallow
a pill containing a polymer that would expand once it
reaches the stomach, thereby reducing the feeling of
hunger. The polymer itself would dissolve in a matter
of days.
The GRT principals are Dan Burnett, an MD and an MBA
graduate from Duke University, and Nate Beyor, a Ph.D.
student in Bioengineering at UC Berkeley.
The second prize of $10,000 went to VSee Lab. VSee
Lab’s proprietary software drives the first viable
desktop video-conference system, allowing up to 20 students
and teachers to see and hear each other simultaneously.
Berkeley MBA students David Geisler and Robert Lee helped
founding CEO Milton Chen, a Berkeley alumnus, with the
business plan.
Medifuel took both the third-place prize of $5,000
and the People’s Choice award of $5,000, voted
on by the audience at the final event. Medifuel’s
GlucoCell battery harnesses the body’s natural
energy resource—glucose—to power implantable
medical devices. Berkeley MBA students Ken Bui and David
Tseng joined inventor Kien Lam in creating a company
around Lam’s GlucoCellTM.
The business plan competition was founded by Berkeley
MBA students. It is hosted by the Lester Center for
Entrepreneurship & Innovation in collaboration with
the College of Engineering and the School of Information
Management & Systems as well as UC San Francisco.
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