29 start-ups selected for Bridgehead 2022

Twenty-nine scale-ups developing diverse healthcare technologies – from medical imaging to exoskeletons – will start their Bridgehead journey with EIT Health this year. Those selected for the 2022 Bridgehead programme will receive tailor-made support to expand their presence to new European and global markets.

Bridgehead sees promising health start-ups gain crucial connections and experience through EIT Health’s vast and diverse network. Selected start-ups can meet and match with EIT Health partners, and subsequently travel to and learn directly from the experts on how to activate business in the three available tracks – Bridgehead Europe, Bridgehead Global and Bridgehead Inbound.

A recent success story from the 2021 intake has been humanITcare. The start-up used the opportunity of the Bridgehead Programme to build a bridge to the Brazilian market. During their journey to Sao Paulo and Campinas, the humanITcare team was able to prove that their solution of remote patient monitoring is much needed in the country.

With the support of their Catalyser StartUB!, they met new and potential customers, and have successfully implemented collaborations with key hospital and players in the Brazilian healthcare sector. Thanks to the Bridgehead programme and EIT Health funding, humanITcare built relationships with new businesses that will assist their growth.

This year, all applications were evaluated by an expert panel based on the innovativeness of their solution, their business model and traction in the home market, and their readiness to expand to other European and global markets.

Meet the selected start-ups for 2022

Bridgehead Global

Amolab (Italy): offers the first and patented technological solution for a safe, automatic and quantitative monitoring of childbirth/ labour.

Ergotrics (Belgium): specialises in positioning patients with compressed air to provide better support without ergonomic burden for healthcare workers.

EVERSENS (Spain): provides personalised healthcare with portable human breath analysis technology, detecting non-invasively exhaled biomarkers for diagnosis and monitoring of chronic diseases.

Gaston Medical (The Netherlands): prevents dangerous or incorrect medication from being given to patients, by use of clinical decision support medical devices.

HMG Systems Engineering (Germany): enables physicians to prescribe personalised medication, with the consideration of drug interactions and how genes affect the body’s response to certain medicines.

Kids Speech Labs (Ireland): enables providers to identify the best approach to speech and language therapy at the earliest opportunity, supporting all stages of care from fully remote to hybrid.

KWARTS (Belgium): helps life sciences companies improve HCP (healthcare professionals) relations using data-driven techniques.

Medical Simulation Technologies (Poland): is advancing medical simulators, by using the latest technologies in computer science and electronics.

Moona (France): improves sleep for millions of people, using breakthrough technology and artificial intelligence (AI).

Super Seton (The Netherlands): a CE-marked medical device that helps patients with fistulas.

Tucuvi Care (Spain): offers remote in-home patient care monitoring programmes through a CE-marked virtual care platform based on AI, voice technology and natural language processing (NLP).

Bridgehead Europe

AdEchoTech (France): specialises in remote robotic ultrasound system which delivers diagnostic processes in real time to remote communities that need ultrasonography (technique to delineate areas of different density in the body).

Cancer Center (Poland): supports oncology diagnosis (pathology and radiology) to achieve a better and faster decision-making process using AI.

Cardiolyse (Finland): is addressing early cardiovascular disease detection/prevention through a post-discharge and chronic cardiovascular disease (CVD) patient monitoring platform.

Deversify (Sweden): offers health tech solutions for increased individual health and wellbeing by providing a powerful tool through a combination of hardware, software, education, and research.

DIVERSA Technologies (Spain): is a nanotechnology that can bind small drugs and complex macromolecules with high efficiency while increasing their stability and boosting their therapeutic activity.

Echolight (Italy): provides a radiation-free solution for assessing the bone health status of lumbar vertebrae and femoral neck.

Eodyne Systems (Spain): develops and commercialises science-based, technological solutions for neurorehabilitation (medical process which aims to aid recovery from a nervous system injury).

Exheus (Spain): provides health intelligence reports that analyse the expression levels of the 22,000 genes of the genome through RNA sequencing and AI.

GutyCare (France): provides patients with a solution to improve their care and identify new predictive markers for digestive diseases.

InukaCare (The Netherlands): helps you to prevent burnout, stress, dropouts and improve the overall wellbeing of your employees.

KIneto TECH (Romania): develops digital care programmes, for people with knee arthrosis (degeneration of cartilage) and lower back pain.

Legit.Health (Spain): is developing computer programmes powered by AI for the detection, measurement, and monitoring of visible diseases.

Moveo (Italy): self-powered, lightweight soft exoskeleton/exosuit that stores the energy generated by hip extensor muscles during walking and uses it to assist motion for patients with walking difficulties.

MOWOOT (Spain): is a medical device company that is treating intestinal transit disorders with a purely physical, non-drug, non-invasive solution.

PHLECS (The Netherlands): has developed a unique technology platform that meets a large amount of needs in dermatology, in particular for the treatment of elderly itching and eczema.

VR Medical (Czech Republic): is creating rehabilitation programmes in virtual reality (physiotherapy, neurotherapy and occupational therapy applications) for a wide range of rehabilitation goals and diagnosis.

Zendra (Ireland): provides turnkey digital health platforms, with the aim of helping with patient engagement and care optimisation.

Bridgehead Inbound

Paed-IQ (South Africa): provides telephone triage aimed at optimising health resource utilisation.

To find out more about the EIT Health Bridgehead programme, please visit eithealth.eu/bridgehead.