EIT Health Scandinavia and EIT Health France are inviting Swedish Digital Health companies with artificial intelligence or digital health solutions to apply to a rewarding and one of a kind Swedish-French Accelerator program. Through the program we will provide expert support to 7-10 selected companies, enabling international collaborations and/or business expansion and access to the French market. The program is supported by Sweden’s innovation agency Vinnova.
Program description:
The Swedish French Accelerator is a one-year program which offers a unique combination of mentoring, onsite and online training sessions, that will help you validate your solution and fit to the French market or build and formalise new relationships and R&D collaborations that may result in actual partnering and/or new R&D proposal submissions. High level experts will assist you in addressing medical, regulatory, technical, and business issues and prepare you to expand your business to France and/or establish new collaborations. Selected companies can expect some travelling during the program (depending in parts on restrictions) but some training sessions will also be offered online. No funding will be given to the selected companies directly, but all expenses associated with participation will be covered by the program with the value of the services given to be counted as “de minimis” support (European Commission regulation 1407/2013). If the applying company is not eligible for de minimis support 2021-2022, then a tailormade co-funding model might be executed (but cannot be guaranteed, so de minimis is the default option). The progress of the participants will be monitored, and a final report will be submitted upon completion.
The program will run from 4 October 2021 to 30 September 2022 and includes the following:
- Specialised training focused on market access to France
- Access to collaborators and partners
- Support for mastering local regulatory and reimbursement systems.
- Mentoring and coaching from European vetted experts
- Invitations to selected fairs and congresses
- A study tour to France to meet with relevant potential partners and relevant healthcare ecosystem
- Connections to relevant industry leaders and key opinion leaders to validate your business
- Contacts to manufacturers, producers and distributors
- Access to testing, experiment and validation infrastructure, including user validations in post-market studies
- Support in understanding how to access financing opportunities
Who should apply:
Companies with 2 – 49 full time employees (FTE) that deliver transformative AI and Digital products to the healthcare system and are willing to expand their businesses to France and/or establish new partnerships and R&D collaborations with French organisations.
Selection process
Applications are screened by Vinnova using their rules for eligibility and subsequently by the EIT Health organisers. The application will then be evaluated by a panel of independent expert reviewers.
Selection process:
- Applications submitted by companies: from 1 July to 31 August.
– Support from EIT Health team during application period.
– Eligibility criteria reviewed by Vinnova and EIT Health.
– Remote evaluation by external evaluators.
– Depending on the number of applications, selected companies may be invited to pitch in front of a jury (28 – 29 September)
– Up to 10 companies are selected for the program
Eligibility criteria (checked by EIT Health):
- The company must be a legal entity registered/incorporated in Sweden and must be a for-profit micro or small enterprise with a staff headcount between 2-49
- The company must have a AI and/or digital health solution addressing healthy living, active ageing and/or improved healthcare
- The technology must have been tested in a relevant environment (for key technologies in an industry-oriented environment)
- The company must have at least 2 full-time employees. Founders can also count as employees in this case
Once enrolled in the program each selected company will receive a 360° need-assessment analysis and together with mentors a specific roadmap and action plan will be prepared for the company on how to expand your business to France and/or increase collaborations and access to funding.
Applications
Application will be accepted between 1 July – 31 August 2021 (23:59 CET).
All applications must be submitted in English on EIT Health’s Optimy platform at the latest by 31 August 2021.
In addition to text inputs in the application form, all companies should upload a slide deck. The slide deck will be part of the evaluation (Maximum 10 slides) and must as a minimum cover the items listed below:
- Team and management
- Current problem
- Your solution
- Risks
- Scientific
- IP situation
- Competitor landscape
- Business or collaborative potential of solution/Product/Service
- What does your company need to expand to new markets or how will you benefit from collaborations?
- Current internationalisation/collaboration efforts
- Past and current funding and plans for further financing
The program will officially start with a Welcome Ceremony on 4 October 2021
Webinar
On 24 August we held an informative meeting about the programme with guest speakers from Minnity and Medicen.
Contact
If you wish to discuss this opportunity in further details please contact
Scandinavian Team
Per Horn, Business Creation and Innovation Manager
French Team
Robin Eggert-Griscelli, Innovation Manager, EIT Health France.