Cruising and pitching for better health: SHIP 2018

28 start-ups showcase their innovative healthcare solutions at EIT Health Germany’s SHIP event

On 11 July 2018, the “Königin Silvia” hoisted the anchors again and the team from EIT Health Germany kicked-off the 2018 edition of its annual Ship for Health Innovation Pitches in Heidelberg.

Click here to learn more about the Ship for Health Innovation Pitches (SHIP) 2018 programme.

Now in its third year, EIT Health Germany invited a stellar selection of start-up teams who were either competing for one of the entry tickets for EIT Health’s European Health Catapult (EHC)programme in the categories “BioTech”, “MedTech” or “Digital Health”, or competing for one of six EIT Health Headstart Awards, which are valued €50 000 each. This year’s pitching start-up teams were drawn from 150+ submissions. Thus, receiving an invitation to pitch at the event was already a big achievement.

In total, about 100 participants from the healthcare, entrepreneurship and private equity fields joined this year’s great event. Participating partners from the EIT Health ecosystem included: BioM, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Fraunhofer Institute, Heidelberg University, Janssen-Cilag GmbH, Roche Diagnostics GmbH, RWTH Aachen, SAP SE and Siemens Healthineers. Board members Prof. Dr. Thomas Rausch (Heidelberg University) and Dr. Torsten Niederdränk (Siemens Healthineers) were amongs the guests, as well as previous winners and alumni of EIT Health programmes.

For most of the day, while cruising the beautiful Neckar, 28 start-up teams pitched their newest healthcare innovations in three to five minute presentations. For the members of the expert jury, for example Dr. Birgit Kerber from EMBL or Dr. Thomas Hegendörfer from Johnson & Johnson, as well as for all attending guests, it was an exciting and inspiring event to watch the start-ups competing against each other. Topics included: cancer therapies, orthodontic solutions, sleep disorder screening devices, algorithms for mental diseases, language tools for patients suffering from stroke or dementia, and many more.

Throughout the event, all experts, participants and guests had ample opportunities to network as well as to enjoy the spectacular views.

In the late afternoon, when the winners of all of the different categories were to be announced, Dr. Katharina Ladewig, Managing Director of EIT Health Germany, expressed her appreciation to all participants for their performance:

“It was a pleasure and privilege to welcome such an amazing group of health innovators aboard and to hear them pitch their newest healthcare innovations to our expert jury. Congratulations to all the teams on their fantastic pitches – thank you for treating us to such an inspirational display of innovative products and services. Choosing the winners certainly wasn’t an easy task!”

• Aquarray and Pharmgenomics were the winning teams in the “BioTech” category.
• Medical Magnesium and SensArs were the winning teams in the “MedTech” category.
• Mindpax and Sleepiz AG were the winning teams in the “Digital Health” category.

All teams will now progress to the next stage of the European Health Catapult, where they will be given the opportunity to perfect their pitch through intensive coaching by experienced pitch coaches, be able to present their company in front of experts and international investors during the European semi-finals, and have a chance to showcase their innovations at EIT Health’s Annual Summit in front of 500+ representatives of EIT Health’s 140+ partner organisations.

The six Headstart Awards went to Sleepiz AG, LARALAB, inveox, nanoleq GmbH, FeelSpace and MUNEVO. The prize money attached to each award (€ 50 000) will now support each awardee in accomplishing their next steps towards the market and shorten the time-to-market for their innovative products and services (for further information on the winner´s innovative ideas, please check the event brochure).

The Audience Awards went to Heyfair for the Headstarts and mk2 Biotechnologies for the European Health Catapult. Congratulations to all winning teams!

The winners and all finalists will be able to join the EIT Health Alumni Network and subsequently be able to access EIT Health’s community of experts, mentors, investors and commercial partners.

Please find the official press releases in English and German below.

For further enquiries contact:

Christine Neumann, christine.neumann@eit-health.de