Sam Kamali will never forget his cousin Nader, who is the inspiration behind his startup Myonerv.
On Wednesday, Kamali was crowned winner of Cambridge Tech Week’s 2026 Pitch Competition, walking away with the £5,000 top prize.
Myonerv is developing a wearable neurostimulator band that remotely monitors stroke patients and moves paralysed limbs in real time.
The band is placed over a patient’s forearm to enable them to regain real-time control of their hand, while connecting them remotely to a physiotherapist.
Myonerv was founded two years ago, but its origins date back to a London playground when Kamali and his cousin Nader were 11.
Kamali said the pair were more like twins than cousins and would spend most summers together.
The five startups in the Cambridge Tech Week Pitch Competition were Hothouse Therapeutics, Polytecks, Lambda Energy, Myonerv and Xplore Intelligence
Everything changed when Nader began suffering from headaches and hospital tests revealed he had a brain tumour that triggered a stroke.
Miraculously, he was able to walk out of Great Ormond Street Hospital four months later – although the speed of his subsequent recovery was hindered by a shortage of physiotherapists.
Kamali recalled: “Without physiotherapy my cousin was in a dark room, left to himself watching TV and not really taking care of his paralysed left hand.
“We had a physiotherapist come in once a week but that physiotherapist had other clients and maybe in different parts of the city. Having once a week was the goal. We didn’t hit that.”
After identifying the problem, Kamali became a neuroscientist to try to find a solution.
His big break came when he found his engineering partner, George Gryparis, at Imperial College London and they launched Myonerv to develop an upper-limb rehabilitation device built around the everyday challenges and dreams of stroke and brain injury survivors.
NICE recommends that stroke patients undergo at least three hours of needs-based rehabilitation on at least five days a week, but Kamali said staff shortages mean most sessions only last one hour.
Myonerv uses electrodes that can manipulate a patient’s fingers and connect physiotherapists with patients through virtual wards.
“We can have group sessions so you can increase the number of patients you can see per day with the same workforce you have today,” said Kamali.
The startup has raised £420,000 and is currently looking to raise £1m in pre-seed funding.
The company is about to embark on patient trials, but Kamali said his big vision is for Myonerv to work alongside the NHS and clinical stakeholders on patients’ rehabilitation after they are discharged from hospital.
“This is not just a company,” he said. “We want it to be a full level government service.”
Tragically, Nader died three years ago when his cancer returned, but Kamali said his memory lives on through Myonerv.
The other four startups in the Cambridge Tech Week Pitch Competition were Hothouse Therapeutics, Lambda Energy (t/a Lambda Agri), Polytecks and Xplore Intelligence.