An idea for a polymer-based drug delivery system won the University of Akron top honors at the second annual LaunchTown Entrepreneurship competition Monday night.

The UA team beat students from five other Northeast Ohio universities, who presented their plans for new businesses or products to a panel of judges for a grand prize of $5,000 cash and $10,000 in donated professional services.

At the John Carroll University event, the UA students outlined their plans for PureBalance Polymeric Solutions, which seeks to use patented polymers for a variety of medical products reaching multibillion dollar markets.

The main product uses a flexible polymer system that will deliver drugs ranging from common anti-inflammatory agents to complex molecules such as proteins and genetic components.

Medicine can be encapsulated within biodegradable polymer shells, made of nontoxic material that is found naturally in the human body.

The treatment can be released at a time and in quantities customized for each patient, whose needs can range from skin regeneration to cancer treatments.

The first initiative will fo
cus on a drug delivery system for postoperative atrial fibrillation (PAF) prevention, since there currently is no generally accepted prevention method for open-heart surgery patients, the team reported. There are some 700,000 open-heart surgeries performed each year, with 65 percent of patients developing PAF.

Teams from Kent State, Cleveland State, Ashland, Baldwin-Wallace and John Carroll also competed for the prize.

Parth Shah, a UA doctoral candidate in chemical and biomolecular engineering, is co-owner of the technology, filed in a provisional patent through the university.

Shah will be the acting chief executive of PureBalance until the patent is received and the search for a CEO with experience can begin.

Anand Parikh, another doctoral candidate in biomedical engineering, will work with Shah in developing the first product.

The other two students on the UA LaunchTown team — Tim Johnson (an MBA candidate in management) and Shana Horonetz (an MBA candidate in entrepreneurship) — will oversee the finance, marketing and operations aspect of the firm.

PureBalance's business plan outlined the need to partner with Northeast Ohio's medical community, investors, government and educational institutions. It predicted a plan that begins with a seven-year process to win FDA approval and ends with ''an increased demand for talent in the Northeast Ohio region.''