EIT Health InnoStars has announced the winners of one of its flagship healthcare competitions, ‘InnoStars Awards’, along with the list of teams who receive additional support in the ‘EIT Health Headstart programme – InnoStars Edition’. Teams from Lithuania, Slovakia, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Romania and Poland are in the spotlight this year.
The aim of the EIT Health Headstart and InnoStars Awards programmes is to support startups from regions classified as moderate and modest innovators (according to the European Innovation Scoreboard) to develop healthcare solutions with grants and mentoring, and help them validate their innovations, attract investors and shorten the time to introduce their business ideas to the market.
In 2020, the supported teams were announced during the virtual Bio-Europe event at the end of October during the InnoStars Awards and Headstart Grand Finals.
The winners of the InnoStars Awards
Ligence, the Lithuanian startup working on software innovations to reduce the workload on medical teams, won the EIT Health InnoStars Awards 2020 competition. Ligence have already attracted a round of pre-seed funding this year and they participated in EIT Health Jumpstarter in 2019. Founded in 2019, Ligence uses deep learning tech in its software, which is capable of automatic segmentation of the heart’s anatomical features, functional assessment and the production of a structured report for a physician. Faster, more cost-efficient and accurate cardiovascular diseases diagnosis and management become a reality with their development. Their tech is particularly important in the COVID-era, as it can evaluate ultrasound images of the heart with COVID-19 and clinical signs of cardiovascular disease.
“Thanks to the funding received, our company can solve the problems of assessing the heart damage of COVID-19 patients more quickly and allocate more human resources to this project. The funding will allow the costs associated with the development of R&D to be paid for. Winning the InnoStars Awards in 2020 is a great opportunity and we had the chance to meet and work with mentors and advisors thanks to EIT Health InnoStars”, said Justin Balčiūnas, Operations Manager at Ligence.
FaceRehab, a Slovakian startup focusing on innovative face palsy treatment received the second prize. Founded in 2020, the team’s solution offers to track patient face movements and create progress data thanks to the mobile application and use of a depth camera which creates a 3D face model.
PhoenixOrthosis nabbed the second prize. The Hungarian team, founded in 2018, supports stroke survivors to make their lives easier and rehabilitation more effective with an active hand-finger spasm orthosis.
During the last six months, the startups received €25K smart funding, business planning, individual mentoring, and opportunities to take part in networking events of EIT Health InnoStars.
Now, having won, in addition to the top 3 prizes, they’ll have access to the support and potential investor connections available from EIT Health’s Investor Network and EIT Health’s Living Labs and Test Beds network.
Ten teams receive additional support in EIT Health Headstart programme – InnoStars Edition
During the 2020 edition of the Headstart programme, all semi-finalist teams received €40K to further develop their innovations, and competed for an additional €10K in the Grand Final of one of the most important healthtech programmes in Europe.
This year 5 projects from Italy, two from Portugal and one from Hungary, Romania and Poland received additional support.
The Italian teams are IMMAGINA BioTechnology S.r.l., Kyme NanoImaging srl, SYNDIAG S.R.L., Mysurable LTD and Allelica S.r.l. Allelica S.r.l uses genomic software to identify people who will develop the highest severity of COVID-19 clinical manifestation, while IMMAGINA BioTechnology S.r.l produces research tools for gene expression analysis at the ribosomal level. Kyme NanoImaging srl improves MRI with injectable medical products that combine biomaterials with clinically used contrast agents, which, produced with a patented nanotechnology platform, increase contrast capability to make greater anatomical details visible. SYNDIAG S.R.L. empowers medical doctors to perform early diagnosis of ovarian cancer during ultrasound medical imaging with AI-based software, and Mysurable LTD produces mioTest, the first comprehensive, portable and automated system to evaluate muscular performance in order to diagnose sarcopenia, a syndrome characterised by the loss of muscle mass.
The Portuguese supported projects are Bac3Gel, a team that develops a model of human mucus to transform microbiology and the way bacteria-modulating drugs are discovered. C-mo Medical Solutions answers an unmet clinical need with a wearable cough-monitoring device that provides a comprehensive assessment of a patient’s distinctive cough patterns.
Sineko Global Kft. from Hungary is a startup with a solution that helps radiologists with the GRAID software, an AI-supported structured reporting system for cross-border teleradiology. Lorton Investments Sp. z o.o. from Poland produces SenceBand, a wearable device for electrocardiography (ECG) sensor using one wrist only.
The InnoStars Awards will be back in 2021 and are already open for micro and small enterprises, spin-offs and startups that have a prototype or a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).