21 start-ups reach EIT Health Catapult Final

Twenty-one start-ups from across Europe have secured their places at the EIT Health Catapult Final. The finalists represent the most promising European start-ups across biotech, medtech and digital health.

The EIT Health Catapult, currently in its sixth year, boosts the development of European health start-ups by exposing them to leading experts and international investors. Winners often go on to achieve impressive growth.

Notably, two of last year’s winners recently celebrated acquisitions, following their success in 2020. Second in last year’s biotech category, PhagoMed, were acquired by BioNTech and Patchai were acquired by US-based Alira Health, having come third in digital health.

Dr. Kurt Höller, Director of Business Creation at EIT Health, said: “After the EIT Health Catapult success stories from the past two years, we are thrilled to announce 21 promising start-ups that will compete in our finals live on stage. We look forward to seeing what the winners go on to achieve with our support.”

Meet the finalists

Three podium finalists from each category will compete on stage during the final. Our runners-up are invited to the final to have the opportunity to pitch.

Biotech

Podium finalists:

Onena Medicines (Spain): makes antibody medicines that force drug resistant cancer stem cells to permanently grow old, rendering them incapable of sustaining and spreading cancer.

SideROS (France): a preclinical stage biotech, developing small molecules targeting iron metabolism to fight cancer resistance, responsible for relapse and metastasis.

SolasCure (UK): makes Aurase®, a hydrogel containing a safe, active, highly specific enzyme, isolated and cloned from medical maggots which promotes faster wound cleaning.

Finalists (runners-up):

Arthex Biotech (Spain): a preclinical stage life sciences company focused on developing the next generation of RNA therapies to treat myotonic Dystrophy Type1.

Asylia Diagnostics (Belgium): an artificial intelligence enabled in vitro diagnostics company, focused on optimising the clinical management of cancer patients treated by immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Limula (Switzerland): saves lives by enabling widespread access to the latest generation of personalised cancer treatments.

myNEO (Belgium): helps to unlock the potential of immunotherapy for every cancer patient using innovative biosimulation and AI heuristics.

Medtech

Podium finalists:

Leuko (Spain): develops PointCheck™, a device that can monitor white blood cells non-invasively. White blood cell monitoring is a first-line indicator in cancer chemotherapy and infection detection.

Luminate Medical (Ireland): develops a novel technology to manage off-target drug delivery. Their product, Lily, provides a portable, patient-focused treatment to prevent chemo induced hair loss.

Thinksono (Germany): created the world’s first software for automatic detection of deep vein thrombosis (DVT). DVT is the number one cause of preventable hospital death.

Finalists (runners-up):

Arthrosave (Netherlands): offers a revolutionary procedure to preserve the knee joint for people with osteoarthritis, significantly reducing pain and improving function.

BeFC (France): makes electricity with papers and enzymes. Their paper biofuel cells provide an eco-friendly and sustainable energy solution for low-power medical devices.

FeelTect (Ireland): has developed Tight Alright, the first connected health platform for monitoring compression therapy; improving healing, reducing costs, and facilitating self-managed treatment.

Orixha (France): aims to bring liquid ventilation’s clinical benefits to the ICUs to save critical care patients. Vent2Cool is developed to shield the brain and heart from reperfusion injury.

Digital Health

Podium finalists:

AZmed (France): develops AI-powered solutions improving radiologist’s productivity and diagnostics quality. Their first product Rayvolve detects all types of fractures on X-rays.

Brightlobe (UK): has invented patent-pending technology that can assess and support a child’s brain development using clinically validated mobile games.

Ebenbuild (Germany): develops simulation/AI software to generate data about patients’ lungs, enabling doctors to provide better personalised therapy for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS).

Finalists (runners-up):

Amara Therapeutics (Ireland): develops a prescription digital therapeutic platform, RiSolve, for the treatment of Overactive Bladder.

Exheus (Spain): the first direct-to-consumer gene expression report that helps to optimise people’s health in a highly personalised way, by sequencing the RNA from a blood sample.

Heaxel (Italy): develops icone, a connected network of robots which aids the neurorehabilitation of stroke patients from hospital to home.

Mentalis (Germany): provides evidence-based digital aftercare that combines algorithm-driven app-therapy and instant psychological tele-support.

The EIT Health Catapult Finals

Each team will now pitch their solution to the EIT Health network at the EIT Health Summit, due to take place May 24th – 25th 2022, in Stockholm, Sweden. The EIT Health network is one of the largest healthcare communities worldwide including over 150 leading healthcare organisations.

The three Podium finalists in each category (medtech, biotech and digital health) will compete for three prizes: €40,000, €20,00, and €10,000. One of the finalists will also win the “Alex Casta Audience Award”. This gives them a unique opportunity to have their logo displayed on the Nasdaq Tower in New York’s Times Square, where it will be seen by millions of people worldwide.

This year, the EIT Health Catapult has also joined forces with leading healthcare players in Europe to further support the most promising start-ups. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Astrazeneca, eg technology, McDermott Will & Emery and Merck have all sponsored additional prizes that will provide the winners with their expertise and support.

Here’s how our sponsors will be supporting those that won their prizes:

• AWS will offer promotional credits and consultancy to all semi-finalists.
• Astrazeneca through its prize for the most exciting oncology solution will connect three winners, Asylia Diagnostics, Leuko and Mentalis, to its corporate teams worldwide for projects roll—outs.
• eg technology with the most innovative products prize will offer Leuko, Orixha and Innitius engineering support in product development.
• Lusiadas Saude Prizes offers the winners, ADDAX Biosciences, Thinksono and Avatar Medical pilots at the hospital group.
• Mc Dermott Will & Emery prizes winners, Arthex, Recornea and AZmed, will benefit from hours of legal consultancy.
• Merck’s emerging biotech prize will offer Onena Medicines opportunity to take their first steps towards clinical manufacturing together with Merck with Merck’s M Lab facility.

The EIT Health Summit will see our vibrant community of world-leading healthcare innovators come together to envision a long-lasting agenda for healthcare in Europe. The EIT Health Catapult Final and award ceremony will happen on 24th May. Learn more and register your interest.

Applications open for EIT Health Catapult 2022 in January. Find out more.