3 Irish start-ups selected for the EIT Health Catalyst Award

EIT Health supported start-ups Byteflies and SYNCSENCE were among the four start-ups awarded in the NAM Healthy Longevity QuickFire Challenge by Johnson & Johnson Innovation.

Healthy Longevity Catalyst Awards.

The awards are part of the Healthy Longevity Global Competition – a multiyear, multimillion-dollar international competition seeking breakthrough innovations to extend human health and function later in life.

Founded by the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, the competition has been running for two years and calls on teams and individuals from diverse backgrounds including science, medicine, technology, finance, and social sciences to submit novel and innovative ideas. The Competition includes a three-tiered structure of awards: a first phase of Catalyst Awards, a second phase Accelerator Award, and a third Grand Prize phase.

EIT Health is administering and funding the Catalyst Awards, participating in the first phase of the Global Competition to assist in the immediate need for solutions to combat ageing around the world, which provides an opportunity for ventures to focus on physical, mental, and social well-being for people as they age.

“I am pleased to continue our collaboration with EIT Health, and together with all of our global partners, welcome a new cohort of scientists, innovators, and entrepreneurs for their ambitious work to extend the human health span. This diverse and cross-disciplinary group is helping to improve the physical, mental, and social wellbeing of people as they age. We look forward to continuing our support of new researchers in the field of longevity to stimulate breakthroughs that will impact the lives of generations to come,” said National Academy of Medicine President Victor J. Dzau.

21 start-ups have received a Catalyst Award from EIT Health as part of the competition, with each receiving up to €50,000 seed funding to advance their product or service:

Advosense GmbH (Germany): Advosense aims to transform incontinence management in healthcare settings by developing a next generation incontinence solution.

Arthex Biotech S.L. (Spain): ARTHEx develops antisense RNA treatments for unmet genetic diseases. ARTHEx’s first product in the pipeline is an oligonucleotide for the treatment of myotonic dystrophy.

Asthmaware BV (the Netherlands): Asthmaware develops a smart nightwear that monitors asthma symptoms in children and prevents asthma attacks. The product will offer continuous nocturnal monitoring to give the child, parents, and caregivers the information they need to keep asthma under control.

Biel Glasses SL (Spain): Biel Glasses uses 3D computer vision and augmented reality to create electronic glasses for people with poor vision. The glasses adapt the reality to each user’s vision capacity detecting the relevant items (obstacles, objects and faces) and signaling them.

DeepSpin GmbH (Germany): DeepSpin’s mission is to make MRI universally accessible by building portable, low-cost MRI devices based on proprietary novel NMR technology.

Dermavision Solutions S.L (Spain): Dermavision aims to improve melanoma detection and decrease cost associated with the disease with an rapid acting autonomous device.

DOTLUMEN S.R.L (Romania): Lumen creates glasses to aid navigation of the blind, aiming to replicate and build on the benefits of guide dogs.

Evora Biosciences SAS (France): Evora Biosciences develops a therapeutic treatment for complex digestive fistula, which do not respond to currently available treatments.

Flowbone SA (Switzerland): Flowbone offers a revolutionary treatment for hip fracture prevention. Their new generation biomaterial is injected into the bone under local anesthesia.

Hephaï (France): Hephaï develops an application to educate patients suffering from asthma, correcting their movements in real time while using their inhaler.

Invivopower AB (Sweden): Invivopower aims to eliminate the need for heart transplants by providing a disruptive transcutaneous energy link which transfers energy wirelessly through the skin without penetrating the bacterial skin.

Kyme NanoImaging srl (Italy): Kyme NanoImaging has patented a nanotechnology platform to combine biomaterials with clinically used contrast agents to enhance the contrast capability and improve MRI diagnostics.

neoMimix (Ireland): neoMimix has developed a novel microfluidics-based technology for the natural selection of sperm with better quality DNA within a human fertility clinic.

Novus Diagnostics LTD (Ireland): Novus Diagnostics has developed SepTec, a next generation sepsis detection device that is making significant strides towards addressing the vital need for rapid and accurate sepsis diagnosis.

Nursebeam OÜ (Estonia): Nursebeam has developed a health chatbot to make healthcare more accessible so that more people can instantly get health advice in their language and geography.

Resitu AB (Sweden): ReSitu™ aims to revolutionise the biopsy market with a biopsy instrument that can remove a whole tumour without surgical intervention.

Salvus Health BV (Belgium): Salvus Health aims to empower people to take control of their health and live healthier and more independent lives. They are creating a Point-of-Care platform integrating a range of medical devices (mhealth apps, consumer electronics and consumer tests) to make preventive healthcare and self-care more accessible and understandable.

Serenno Medical (Israel): Serenno Medical aims to reduce or even prevent ICU complications by monitoring ongoing Urine Output (UO) to catch Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) earlier, making it easier to prevent and treat affected patients.

Sision Medical (Ireland): Sision Medical uses the latest advances in bioengineering and artificial intelligence to result in an entirely new treatment approach for chronic inflammatory endocrine conditions.

SurgAR (France): SurgAR (Surgical Augmented Reality), develops a real time augmented reality software based on artificial intelligence and computer vision to increase surgical procedures’ effectiveness and efficiency.

SYNDIAG S.R.L. (Italy): SynDiag develops AI based technology, called OvAI, to improve early diagnosis of ovarian cancer.