A Wisconsin company that says its medical device could prevent some deaths took top honors at the Elevator Pitch Olympics on Thursday.

A highlight of the Wisconsin Early Stage Symposium, the event is a verbal sprint in which entrepreneurs have 90 seconds to explain their product, how it's unique, how competent their management team is and how much money they need — all in 90 seconds, as if they were riding up an elevator with a prospective investor.

Eight seasoned investors from Madison and Chicago judged their presentations.

Winning awards for best business plan and for "people's choice," was Eso Technologies. Its product, 10 years in the making, is designed to replace the pulmonary artery catheter used to monitor heart patients during surgery. Up to 20,000 patients each year in the U.S. suffer complications related to the catheter, said Eso chief executive Bonnie Reinke, a former manager with GE Healthcare Life Support Systems, formerly Datex-Ohmeda.

Eso's alternative is an esophageal stethoscope with heart monitor sensors attached, an invention that already has six patents, Reinke said, and will be ready for clinical trials in early 2009.

"I think she hit all the right buttons," said judge Bob Okabe of RPX Group, Chicago.

Greg Dockter won for best presentation. His company, ByzMed, is developing a homeopathic nasal spray that stops nosebleeds.

Eighteen entrepreneurs gave their elevator pitches with products such as software to manage construction project timetables, a device that simplifies the way we use mobile phones and a water treatment process for the mining industry.

Jeffrey Nerone hit a nerve with the judges and the audience alike. His company, Inner Compass, includes a radio show, magazine, Internet site and greeting cards aimed at "helping men lead emotionally healthy lives. We address what men don't speak about but women want to know," Nerone told the chuckling audience.

Information technology serial entrepreneur Jan Eddy gave Nerone high scores, calling the idea "novel. It's a space that's really crying out for attention," Eddy said.

The Early Stage Symposium, held Wednesday and Thursday at Monona Terrace, drew about 500 people, including investors from as far as New York, Boston and Louisville, said Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, which organized the event.

Twenty-two other young, local companies, further along in their development, made presentations earlier in the conference in their search for funds that will help them grow.