Awards for Innovation in Healthcare & Bioscience
September 23, 2026
Accepting nominations for local innovators for the 2026 awards until March 22, 2026.
Registration is closed.
2025 PRESENTING SPONSORS
Honoring Leaders of Healthcare Innovation
The BioMedSA Awards for Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience celebrate local and national innovators in the healthcare and bioscience industry, including patient care, education, research and development, leadership, public policy and medical technology. Each year, the selection committee will determine the awards to be given from the following categories:
- Research Innovation Award – This award recognizes a pioneering researcher whose innovations in bioscience have made a significant impact on human health. Awarded at the Innovation Award Event.
- Clinical Innovation Award – This award celebrates an innovative clinician whose creativity, vision and programs have transformed patient care, advanced healthcare practice, and/or health policy. Awarded at the Innovation Award Event.
- Entrepreneur Innovation Award –This award honors an innovative entrepreneur whose business has advanced healthcare while driving local economic growth through job creation. Awarded at Biofest Invest.
- Lifetime Achievement Award – This award honors a visionary leader whose lifetime of innovation in healthcare and bioscience has profoundly advanced human health and strengthened the local economy. Awarded at the Innovation Award Event.
Event Details
September 23, 2026
5:30 – 7:00pm
Networking / Cocktails
7:00 – 8:00pm
Dinner & Award Presentation
8:00 – 9:00pm
Networking
Members: $200/person
Non-Members: $250/person
The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts
100 Auditorium Cir
San Antonio, TX 78205
2024 Innovation Award Remarks
San Antonio Medical Foundation
UT Health San Antonio
2026 BioMedSA Entrepreneur Award Honoree
2026 BioMedSA Entrepreneur Award
James Leininger, M.D.
UPDATE ALL OF THIS….
2026 BioMedSA Clinical Impact Award Honoree
2026 BioMedSA Clinical Impact Award
Donald H Jenkins, M.D., FACS
CUPDATE ALL OF THIS BIO INFORMATION
2026 BioMedSA Research Award Honoree
2026 BioMedSA Research Award
Robert A. Clark, M.D.
UPDATE THIS AREA
2025 Sponsors
Presenting Sponsors
Diamond Sponsors
Gold Sponsor
Silver Sponsors
Corporate Sponsors
Alamo BioCenter
Bexar County Economic & Community Development
Broadway Bank
Guido Construction
Henry M. Jackson Foundation
Higginbotham
Jefferson Bank
Page, now Stantec
San Antonio Chamber of Commerce
South Texas Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program
The Health Cell
Trinity University
University of the Incarnate Word
UTSA – Office of Innovation and Commercialization
UT Health – Office of the Vice President of Research
Vascular Perfusion Solutions
VelocityTX
Voelcker Biomedical Research Academy
WPS Medical Consultants LLC
Recipients
- 2025 – Larry Schlesinger, M.D., infectious disease researcher and organizational leader
- 2024 – Jason McLellan , Ph.D., structural biologist
- 2023 – Sunil Ahuja, M.D., infectious disease and immune system researcher
- 2021/2 – Robert Ward, Ph.D., serial biomaterials inventor and entrepreneur
- 2020 – Rena Bizios, Ph.D., research in cell-material interactions and biomedical engineering pioneer
- 2019 – Stephen Badylak, D.V.M., Ph.D., M.D., discovered the use of the extracellular matrix
- 2018 – Alan Peterson, Ph.D., ABPP, the nation’s foremost research leader in combat-related PTSD
- 2017 – Leonard Pinchuk, Ph.D., D.Sc. prolific biomaterials scientist and inventor
- 2016 – George E. Peoples, Jr., M.D., FACS, cancer immunotherapy pioneer
- 2015 – W.E. (William Esco) Moerner, Ph.D., Nobel Prize-winning chemist
- 2014 – Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., nationally-renowned pediatric transplant surgeon
- 2013 – Robert S. Langer, Sc.D., world-renowned engineer, inventor and entrepreneur in tissue engineering and biomaterials
- 2012 – Larry Miller, M.D., pioneer of leading intraosseous vascular access technology
- 2011 – Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D., biologist and inventor of numerous scientific instruments
- 2010 – C. Mauli Agrawal, Ph.D., founded biomedical engineering degree program at UTSA
- 2009 – Dean Kamen, internationally acclaimed inventor and founder of DEKA and FIRST
- 2008 – Robert Campbell, M.D., Melvin Smith, M.D., and Kaye Wilkins, M.D., pediatric orthopedic inventors
- 2007 – Karen Davis, Ph.D., children’s health assessment program
- 2006 – Julio Palmaz, M.D., inventor of the first commercially successful intravascular stent
Lifetime Achievement Award
- 2025 – George Hernandez, J.D., public health leadership
- 2023 – William Henrich, M.D., medical, institutional and community leadership
- 2018 – Basil A. Pruitt, Jr. M.D., one of the founding fathers of modern trauma and burn medicine
