EIT Health
Together for healthy lives in Europe
Foreword
Europe faces a turning point in health. Chronic diseases and growing multi-morbidity cause an estimated economic loss of €115bn per year. Combined with an ageing population, these challenges are placing huge pressures on health systems and enterprises across Europe. Across 2019, EIT Health has maximised on opportunities to transform healthcare for healthier citizens and a re-energised economy.
Executive Summary
In 2019, EIT Health continued to work towards accomplishing our ultimate goal – to help European citizens live healthier, longer lives. Our key successes and achievements across 2019, include …
… supporting over 350 start-ups creating innovative healthcare solutions …
… training 6,176 graduates and professionals in healthcare innovation …
… launching eight products and services to market …
… reaching 17,893 patients who benefited from EIT Health-supported solutions ...
… influencing policy and decision-making through engagement with key stakeholders, our annual summit, and our thought leadership forum, Think Tank.
Healthcare challenges
To achieve our ambition of transforming healthcare in Europe for healthier citizens, we have identified six of the most urgent healthcare challenges facing society in which we aim to effect change …
Reform care pathways
Working to extend care pathways to provide end-to-end care from before the onset of disease through to end-of-life support.
Transform healthcare
Bringing together innovators to harness new and better technologies that optimise healthcare delivery and treatment, and create a sustainable healthcare system that can support an ageing society.
Harness real-world data
Delivering prediction models for early diagnosis, enhancing treatment and informing how we can lead healthier lives by harnessing the wealth of healthcare data available across Europe.
Bringing care home
Prioritising innovative solutions that support healthcare delivery in the home and away from the hospital, to ensure healthcare is more accessible for all European citizens while reducing pressure on hospital services.
Health in the workplace
Improving workplace health at every level through better education, improved personal awareness and helping to make healthy choices easier.
Fostering healthier lives
Changing lifestyle behaviours by creating the tools and incentives that help protect the health of European citizens, prevent early ageing, and reduce disease and disability.
Creating change in healthcare
Our tools, resources and programmes enable us to understand how health needs are changing and support the discovery, development and growth of life-changing health products, services and new businesses.
Accelerator
Within Accelerator, we work with entrepreneurs, start-ups, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to bring transformative products and services to market – attracting the attention of global investors, while nurturing world-class talent and employment opportunity.
Education
Education is our portfolio of programmes equipping learners with the knowledge and skills they need to solve the healthcare needs of tomorrow.
Innovation
Our Innovation projects strive to answer the biggest healthcare challenges facing Europe by connecting bold ideas to leading experts, who turn them into a commercially-viable product or service that can change the lives of people in Europe.
Think Tank
The EIT Health Think Tank is our thought leadership forum, which brings healthcare leaders together to prepare the ground for life-changing innovation and to identify the next opportunity for a step-change in delivery.
Accelerator
Innovation in healthcare relies on generating investments, securing ongoing funds to scale businesses up and out, as well as inspiring adoption of new technology through policy and decision-making processes. The EIT Health Accelerator supports this by catalysing growth at any stage of a business’ maturity to build a European health economy that continues to compete on the global stage.
Key achievements for 2019
350+
start-ups supported
€169
million total investment attracted
Crowdfunding
In 2019, we launched Aescuvest, the first European cross-border crowdfunding platform specifically aimed at healthcare start-ups and SMEs.
In the first five months, we started to support four start-ups, with over €15 million invested.
Discover more about how the platform can benefit healthcare companies
New partnerships
We partnered with the European Investment Fund (EIF) to increase access to funding in healthcare by combining their network with our own to establish a Venture Centre of Excellence (VCoE).
Learn more about the partnership and the benefits for start-ups and corporates in healthcare
Gold Track
2019 saw the launch of our Gold Track programme, which offers highly individualised mentorship and tailored strategic guidance to health start-ups that have the greatest potential to scale up and succeed in the global marketplace.
Diabeloop
Attracting €31 million in funding in 2019, Diabeloop is a self-learning therapeutic artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm that automates and personalises the treatment of type 1 diabetes, the incidence of which is increasing in Europe each year.
Vigo
We provided mentorship to Vigo, a cutting-edge technology for stroke rehabilitation that could provide much needed support to stroke survivors and their families, who otherwise may not be able to easily access the rehabilitation they need.
Education
Healthcare is undergoing a rapid transformation that will bring with it new professions, requiring new knowledge and skills. Education is our portfolio of programmes equipping learners with the knowledge and skills to solve our healthcare needs of tomorrow. We have programmes to suit every type of learner in healthcare: professionals, students, entrepreneurs, start-ups and SMEs, citizens and patients.
Key achievements for 2019
53
graduates from MSc and PhD programmes
6,176
graduates and professionals trained
26,155
citizens empowered through education
Training future leaders
In 2019, our diverse portfolio of degree programmes provided learners with practical knowledge and inspiration to deliver innovation in healthcare.
In total, 24 universities participated in our MSc or PHD programmes, resulting in 53 students graduating.
Senior Executive Programme
We provided training for senior healthcare executives in the Senior Executive Programme Global Management.
Learners developed their leadership and entrepreneurial skills and also created innovative solutions for challenges they had identified at their own institutions.
Read the latest updates on the programme and upcoming courses
Health challenges
We held a series of summer schools and innovation days with over 2,000 students tackling solutions to real health challenges.
One example, SensUs 2019 tasked teams to create a device to measure a rheumatism drug in the blood.
Empowering Europeans
We helped over 900 European citizens learn about healthy living through our Healthy Lifestyle Innovation Quarters for Cities and Citizens (HeaLIQs4Cities) programme.
The programme included lifestyle assessments, testing innovative products and community initiatives.
Learn more about the initiatives HeaLiQs4Cities is supporting
Innovation
With healthcare organisations facing unprecedented challenges to improve care quality, increase efficiency and lower costs, innovation has never been more important. Our Innovation projects aim to connect world-class experts from business, research and education, to turn ideas into commercially-viable products or services that can change the lives of people in Europe.
Key achievements for 2019
17,893
patients benefited from EIT Health-supported solutions
45
innovation projects started
8
products launched to market
SeizeIT2
We supported the testing of SeizeIT2 in more than 70 patients with epilepsy, providing evidence that the wearable device gave increased accuracy in detecting seizures.
Learn more about SeizeIT2 and the benefit it can bring to patients
Roliner
We aided collaboration between industry, healthcare and academic experts to complete the prototype design of Roliner, a unique wearable device for prosthetics that adapts to changes in the body to improve patient quality of life.
MACH
In 2019, MACH achieved CE certification for EXCOR®, the only mobile “artificial heart” designed for children and adults awaiting heart transplants.
For patients and their families, this mobile device offers greater freedom and increased quality of life.
Wild Card
Each year, our Wild Card challenge invites inventors, creators and self-starters with big ideas to create new business ventures that could change people’s lives.
In 2019, teams tackled one of two challenges: Digital Biomarkers and Brain and Mental Health.
Innovation influencers
In 2019, our thought-leadership forum, the EIT Health Think Tank, brought healthcare leaders together to advocate for the future needs of healthcare in Europe. Through this and other activities we engaged with relevant decision makers to continue to drive innovation in health.
Think Tank
Our thought leadership forum delved into the topic, “Optimising the Innovation Pathway: Future Proofing for Success”, in a series of Round Table events with healthcare experts, innovators and partners. The findings were published and shared with key policy decision-makers.
EIT Health Summit 2019
Our annual two-day Health Summit took place at the Palais Brogniart in Paris. With over 1,000 international participants, the summit explored how we define and understand real needs-based innovation and its role in people’s lives.
Data Saves Lives
We joined forces with the European Patient’s Forum to launch the Data Saves Lives initiative to raise awareness of the importance of the value of health data and its responsible use.
Spotlight
In 2019 we launched Spotlight, our new creative communications series, in which we shine a light on our projects. These tell the story of what we do and the projects that could truly help to revolutionise healthcare in Europe.
How is EIT Health funded?
To make sure we can achieve our ambitions and improve the health and lives of Europeans, we work hard to make EIT Health a financially sustainable organisation, working as transparently and efficiently as possible.
At the end of 2019, EIT Health’s funding was more than twice that secured in 2018 and comparable to that secured in total during the previous three years.
Looking to the future
In 2020, we will continue to find new ways to develop effective solutions that improve the health and well-being of European citizens in line with EU and international healthcare priorities and our six focus areas.
Healthy ageing
Health education plays an important role in reducing the burden of age-related, non-communicable diseases. We’re planning 15 initiatives addressing the associated risk factors.
Chronic disease
In 2020, we will develop more than 25 initiatives to tackle cancer, as well as other chronic diseases, such as age-related and neurodegenerative diseases.
Drug-related illness
To help overcome drug-related illness, we will run two initiatives centred around prevention of HIV/AIDS, and other infections associated with injecting drug use, such as tuberculosis and hepatitis.
BP2020
For more information about what we have planned for 2020, read our BP2020 report.
