EIT Health Accelerator programme receives global recognition of impact and performance

UBI Global, the Stockholm-based innovation intelligence company and community, known for high-quality assessment and mapping of business incubation, released the top lists of business incubators and accelerators as assessed in the World Benchmark Study 2019-2020. The recognitions and announcements took place at the World Incubation Summit 2019 in Doha, Qatar on 6 November 2019.

EIT Health Accelerator is a business creation programme, set up to support the best and brightest health industry entrepreneurs and start-ups, providing skills and services to develop competitive new companies. The programme provides support at every stage of the process – from those who are not yet entrepreneurs or scientists, to more mature start-ups and SMEs focussed on market expansion.

Over the past three years, EIT Health supported starts-ups have attracted a total of more than €90 million in investment. The Accelerator programme has grown each year and so far, has supported more than 400 start-ups and innovative new companies such as Diabeloop, who have developed an artificial pancreas solution for diabetes, and Peptomyc, who are investigating a new potential cancer therapy.

Dr Kurt Höller, Director of Business Creation at EIT Health and recently appointed UBI Global Research Advisory Board Member and EU ambassador said: “It is fantastic to be recognised at this stage of the journey for our programme. We’re proud of what we achieved in just three years and the fact that we are able to tangibly demonstrate our performance and impact. The recognition demonstrates that our extensive network – including key mentors, investors and industry players – really does provide the access, exposure and support that promising new ventures need.

“We also congratulate another member of the EIT community, our colleagues at EIT Digital, which has been ranked among the top five public accelerators worldwide, and as we continue to grow, we hope to join them in this rankings position. Based on the speed of growth experienced so far, EIT Health is well on the way to becoming one of the leading business creation programmes in healthcare, globally – we are looking forward to seeing what we can achieve in our next three years.”

The UBI Global World Benchmark Study looks at business incubation and acceleration on a global scale and in the 2019-2020 report, 364 programmes have been listed among the world’s top programmes.

“Following a rigorous data-driven approach, we assessed and benchmarked incubation programmes across the world,” said Holger Meyer, Director of Research at UBI Global. ”Our World Benchmark Study 2019-2020 is in tune with the multiple facets of the international incubation ecosystem and illustrates key challenges and opportunities faced by the participating programmes.”

EIT Health Partners also rank high

Several EIT Health Partners also achieved high rankings: imec was named among the top five University Business Accelerators, Uppsala Innovation Center among the top five Private Business Incubators, and in the category of University Business Incubators, YES!Delft was among the top five and IPN Portugal among the top ten.