SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA--(Marketwired - Oct. 1, 2013) - Vancouver-based Curatio, a mobile health company, was today announced as the winner of the Novartis' Global competition to create an innovative health care mobile application. Curatio's application, commended for its originality, user-focused design and strong technical approach, was presented to 2000 attendees at the 7^th annual Health 2.0 Conference in Silicon Valley this afternoon.

Selected as the winner from competing companies entering from around the world, Curatio receives a $100,000 prize package and partnership with Novartis Oncology.

Winning Curatio application, ThaliMe, is an innovative, personalized support and tracking tool designed especially for people with thalassemia. It provides users with a virtual support group and allows direct interaction with healthcare professionals.

"We are honored to be the winners of this important Novartis initiative," said Curatio Founder and CEO, Lynda Brown-Ganzert. "Our work at Curatio is passionately dedicated to using mobile technology in ways that help to support, simplify and inspire patients in managing their health. Using our Curatio platform, we were able to develop a tool that will make a real difference in the lives of millions of people living with thalassemia."

Co-founder and CTO, Alireza Davoodi added, "Thalassemia is a complex and difficult disease to manage. We worked closely with people living with this condition to develop a unique technical approach that eases the daily demands of disease management within a supportive social mobile environment."

The company is enrolled in the Wavefront Venture Acceleration Program. Wavefront, Canada's Centre of Excellence for Wireless Commercialization and Research provides early-stage wireless companies support in accelerating their growth through smart connections to experts, office space, training, funding and technical resources. Through Wavefront's Venture Acceleration Program, Curatio received mentoring that helped the company stay focused, lean and strategic.

Winning the Novartis competition will serve as a significant boost to the growth of the 4-month-old company and further supports the company's vision for their platform to be adopted by the millions of patients living with Thalassemia around the world.

About Curatio

Curatio is an early stage mobile health company that is helping people get better, faster, together. The Curatio mobile platform gives patients the support they need for health management and recovery, and provides doctors and nurses with new tools for group monitoring and tracking.

About Novartis

Novartis Oncology has become a global leader in oncology and hematology through targeted research and open partnership in the pursuit of new therapies capable of transforming outcomes for people with cancer and other hematological diseases.