EIT Health Catapult 2021 selects 42 semi-finalists

Forty-two start-ups have selected from across Europe for the EIT Health Catapult Semi-finals.

The start-ups will receive intensive training from experts, meet investors and corporates, and compete in pitch contests to progress to the finals.

The EIT Health Catapult, currently in its sixth year, is a training and competition programme that boosts the development of European health start-ups by exposing them to top quality experts and international investors. The programme has already supported over 189 start-ups and has seen the participation of over 2500 healthcare professionals.

The 42 start-ups chosen for the Semi-finals will now enter intense training days, during which they will be teamed up with mentors. The mentors review and potentially optimise the company business plan, and provide thorough pitch training, in order to improve the start-up’s ability to perform a funding roadshow in front of top-level seed or A-series investors.

After the training, semi-finalists will pitch in front of an international, high-profile jury and an audience of experienced corporate representatives, experts and investors. The top companies in the three categories of biotech, medtech and digital health – 21 start-ups in total – will be selected and invited to pitch during the finals at the EIT Health Summit. They will go head-to-head for their share of the €210,000 investment prize fund with the Audience Award Winner displayed on the New York Nasdaq Tower.

Watch the Semi-finals online

The EIT Health Catapult is inviting investors and experts to attend the virtual Semi-finals, from 1-3 December 2021, for the pitches and for matchmaking. These events provide the opportunity to make early contacts with the healthcare leaders of tomorrow.

Dates for the public pitch days of the semi-finals are:

• Biotech: 1 December 2021
• Medtech: 2 December 2021
• Digital Health: 3 December 2021

Find out more and register for the Semi-final events here.

The 42 semi-finalists:

Biotech

myNEO (Belgium-Netherlands) aims to provide an end-to-end solution for personalised immunotherapy starting from a patient’s tumour-specific genomic alterations.

Asylia (Belgium-Netherlands) develops molecular diagnostics to maximize clinical benefit for cancer patients treated with immunotherapy by suggesting the right therapy for right patient.

BIOPHTA (France) will disrupt Ophthalmology by radically changing the way we treat the eye with a Mucoadhesive Ocular Gel Insert releasing drugs over one week.

SideROS(France)  is a preclinical stage biotech focused on iron interfering drug candidates development for patients at high-risk of relapse and metastasis.

Limula (Germany) provides a platform technology enabling automated cell and gene therapy manufacturing at the highest possible standards.

OmicEra (Germany) aims to catalyze a revolution in medicine and improve quality of life by offering our mass spectrometry-based proteomics platform to biotech, pharma and the clinic.

ADDAX Biosciences (Innostars) introduces an innovative formalin-free histological fixative that substitutes standard formalin based solutions.

Enantis (Innostars) is the biotechnology spin-off company developing innovative proteins and enzymes for better living.

Finnadvance (Scandinavia) is growing human diseases in miniature chips for accelerating drug discovery and ultimately lead to better personalized medicines.

APLEX Bio (Scandinavia) develops and offers reagents that enable highly parallelized detection of biomarkers in-situ in a
disruptively easy and cost-efficient way.

Arthex Biotech (Spain) is developing an RNA therapy to treat Myotonic Dystrophy type 1 (MD1), an orphan disease. ATX-01 is their lead at the preclinical stage.

Onena Medicines (Spain) makes antibody medicines that neutralize Dual SMAD Inhibiting Proteins (DSIPs) to force the maturation of malignant cancer cells.

Renovos Biologics (Ireland-UK) is transforming regenerative medicine and orthopaedics through pioneering use of Renovite nanoclay gels from world-class stem cell research.

SolasCure’s (Ireland-UK) proprietary technology leverages biomimicry and evidence-based medicine to treat patients with chronic wounds.

Medtech

ArthroSave (Belgium-Netherlands) offers a joint preserving surgical treatment for relatively young patients with knee osteoarthritis to postpone a knee replacement.

Kaminari Medical (Belgium-Netherlands) improves the results of heart catherization by combining ultrasound and photoacoustics in one coronary imaging catheter.

BeFC (France) have developed a digital flexible platform powered by a sustainable & eco-friendly paper biofuel cell for single-use/patient applications.

Orixha (France) develops a proprietary Lung Conservative Liquid Ventilation technology platform for life threatening conditions in Critical Care

Adiposs (Germany) makes body wasting visible early with a simple, fast and pain-free ImageBAT-enhanced CT scan available in every hospital worldwide.

ThinkSono (Germany) has created the world’s first software to detect deep vein thrombosis (DVT). DVT is the number one cause of preventable hospital death.

.lumen (Innostars) builds glasses that help the blind live a better life.

RECORNEA (Innostars) is a medtech ophthalmic company at the pre-clinical stage developing implants for treating eye diseases. Their first product is a nitinol-based cornea implant to reshape deformed corneas in people with keratoconus, a disease that causes thinning and bulging of the cornea and a very poor quality of vision.

LS CancerDiag (Scandinavia) wants to save millions of lives by preventing cancer and enable personalized care through an early detection of Lynch syndrome.

Medvasc  (Scandinavia) is aiming to optimize the anaesthesia procedure in laser treatment of varicose veins and by that solve a vast unmet medical need.

Leuko (Spain) is developing the world’s first non-invasive device to monitor white blood cells and protect cancer patients from life-threatening infections.

Innitius (Spain) has developed Fine Birth, the first medical device for the diagnosis of Preterm Labor.

FeelTect (Ireland-UK) delivers connected-health technology for measuring and monitoring wound treatments, enabling data-driven optimisation of care.

Luminate Medical (Ireland-UK) is developing a novel technology to prevent chemotherapy induced hair loss in a portable, comfortable and patient-focused way.

Digital Health

IMedis (Belgium-Netherlands) is developing an AI driven comprehensive quality management platform for Radiology departments.

BioStrand (Belgium-Netherlands) is active in omics data analysis and AI drug discovery.

AZmed (France) has developed Rayvolve, a computer-aided diagnosis tool powered by Artificial Intelligence to detect all types of fractures on standard X-rays.

AVATAR MEDICAL (France) provides surgeons with interactive virtual reality visualization of 3D medical images of their patients, enhancing surgery planning.

Ebenbuild (Germany) provides software-based personalized clinical decision support for mechanical ventilation and critical care based on digital twins of patient lungs.

Mentalis (Germany) offers seamless, digital aftercare to patients suffering from mental disorders by utilizing algorithm-based apps and tele-coaching.

Heaxel s.r.l. (Innostars) designs, develops and commercializes smart devices for robot-mediated rehabilitation and assistance,improving patients’ quality of life.

Virtuleap  (Innostars) unlocks neuroscience with VR to help pharma companies accelerate the approval of drugs designed to treat cognitive illnesses.

KAMU Health Ltd (Scandinavia) develops and markets digital therapeutics for respiratory-illness care.

Cardiolyse (Scandinavia) provides cloud-based heart health analytics, that enables remote vital sign monitoring and personalized patient reports to provide better care.

Exheus (Spain) offers a direct-to-consumer gene expression report that helps to optimize your health in a highly personalized way.

HumanITcare (Spain) delivers a telemedicine platform for monitoring remotely real-life data of chronic patients using Artificial Intelligence.

Brightlobe (Ireland-UK) has invented cutting-edge technology that can both assess and
support paediatric neurodevelopment using clinically-validated mobile games.

Amara Therapeutics (Ireland-UK) have developed RiSolve, a “software as drug” digital platform that treats Overactive Bladder (OAB) more effectively and safely than current prescribed medication.