Award for Innovation in Healthcare & Bioscience

The 2021 BioMedSA Award for Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience will be awarded to Dr. Robert Ward, President of ExThera and a serial inventor and entrepreneur whose contributions to medical innovation have benefitted millions of patients globally. Ward is currently the founder and president of ExThera Medical Corporation where he developed a method of extracting pathogens from blood which has been used on the frontline to battle COVID-19 and sepsis. As a patient’s blood flows through the Seraph® Microbind® Affinity Blood Filter, it passes over tiny beads with receptors that mimic the receptors on human cells that pathogens target when they invade the body. Harmful substances – such as the SARS-COV-2 virus – are quickly captured and adsorbed onto the surface of the beads and are removed from the bloodstream. Ward’s Seraph 100 device has already saved the lives of hundreds of patients with COVID-19 and sepsis, including several in San Antonio, and his company is currently conducting a multi-center, 3-armed observational study (PURIFY-OBS-1). This DoD funded