10 start-ups coming from InnoStars regions compete in the next stage of Start-ups Meet Pharma

Start-ups Meet Pharma is the EIT Health programme for teams of graduate students, post-docs and professionals who are challenged to develop innovative chronic care solutions that go “beyond the pill”, with support from key pharma partners in Europe.

The most promising start-ups want to tackle some of the top pharma challenges and develop solutions that can change clinical trials or treatment for Parkinson disease. Eight of them come from InnoStars regions.

In Start-ups meet pharma 2019 competition, five challenges were defined in collaboration with Amgen, Bayer, Ferrer, Johnson & Johnson, and UCB Biosciences. The programme consists of four training modules on business modelling, marketing, sales strategy, financial planning and forecasting, presenting and pitching skills. The selection committee has chosen most promising start-ups to tackle pharma world challenges and join professional trainings. Ten out of sixteen comes from InnoStars regions and some of them were already accelerated by EIT Health.

Start-ups from InnoStars regions that were selected to participate in the Start-ups Meet Pharma competition:

• GP4R (GP4Research) is a spin-off company of the Medical University of Gdańsk, one of EIT Health Hubs within the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme Programme. GP4Research Ltd. responded to the Bayer AG challenge. The proposed concept was based on the “patient-centered approach” to ensure maximum patient comfort during its participation in a clinical trial. Patient-oriented research significantly improves the recruitment and retention of research participants, which reduces the costs of ongoing projects. GP4R brings 10 years of experience in supporting patient centricity in clinical trials through provision of home care visits for patients. The solution proposed in the competition is a response to the pharmaceutical industry’s demand for a new approach to conducting clinical trials. The Medical University of Gdańsk supports development of GP4R. In 2017 the University’s Centre of Medical Innovations (Centrum Innowacji Medycznych Ltd.) took over minority shares in GP4Research Ltd.
• SyNoesis Therapeutics Ltd., a start-up that won European Health Catapult 2018 competition in the Biotech Category, works on developing a cure for Parkinson’s disease. It responded to the Ferrer challenge: How to improve the management of “wearing-off” motor episodes. SyNoesis Therapeutics comes from Greece and is supported by the National Documentation Centre, one of EIT Health Hubs within the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme Programme.
• aiOmics is an AI platform which uses an innovative approach for various omics data integration, which does not aggravate the disproportion between the number of inputs and cases. It can solve two crucial problems: select the informative molecular alterations and extract actionable knowledge from Big Data with AI. The proposed solution enables complex clinical cross-disciplinary decision making. aiOmics comes from the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme region – Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
• DB Health is a biomarker platform which might be used for early diagnosis and prevention of geriatrics diseases. The team comes from the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme region – Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
• InSignals Neurotech – a Portugese company offers the world’s first objective and real-time rigidity evaluation device for Parkinson’s Disease patients. The start-up comes from Porto, the region included into the Regional Innovation Scheme Programme.
• BestHealth4U provides Bio2Skin, an adhesion material that doesn’t damage the skin, resulting in the reduction of potential hospitalization and wound care healing costs, eliminating the current problems issued from a continuous use of adhesives. This team comes from Portugal.
• CalmSkin is a digital therapy solution that helps early detection of skin inflammation in atopic dermatitis to prevent flareups. The solution is developed by the Hungarian company – Dermus.
• e-Fásli develops a smart self-learning  thermo therapeutical device for multiple disueases and injures. Using anonymous data about the patient’s  body, diseases and symptoms, this solution uses big data analysis to personalize their therapy. This start-up comes from Hungary.
• OHDA empowers female patients with prompt, accurate and highly confidential medical information on their health status.
• TENPROProstate

More about this year’s challenges and the timeline of the programme can be found here.