InnoStars Awards comes back with its 2020 semi-finalists

The fourth edition of InnoStars Awards, one of the flagship programmes of EIT Health InnoStars, brings 15 promising semi-finalists who will get €25,000 in smart money, training and mentoring.

InnoStars Awards helps start-ups from more progressing European regions validate their healthcare innovations, attract investors and ultimately shorten the time to introduce their business ideas to the market. The programme is open for micro and small enterprises, spin-offs and start-ups that already have a prototype or a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The semi-finalists were chosen from 96 high-quality applicants based in 13 EIT Health Regional Innovation Scheme (EIT Health RIS) countries. Selected by a panel of experts, the winning teams include: four from Hungary and Romania, two from Italy, and one from Portugal, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Croatia.

“Our mission in InnoStars Awards is to search and find emerging talents from emerging regions of Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, which is considered to “innovation gold mine” by investors and other ecosystem players. We are proud, that in each year, we can significantly contribute to the market entry of valuable health tech products, created by the top young health tech innovators of this region. After reviewing all applications, and seeing the evaluation results of our senior experts I am sure that we can continue the success series with superb teams!” – says Tamas Bekasi, RIS Business Creation Project Manager at EIT Health InnoStars.

InnoStars Awards journey

The 2020 InnoStars Awards journey has just begun. All selected start-ups will receive €25,000 smart money, individual mentoring for six months and the opportunity to participate in two bootcamps in Europe. EIT Health InnoStars will also organise three validation interviews with potential customers, investors and partners for the award winners. After the four-month programme, ten finalists will be selected to participate in the InnoStars Awards final pitch in November to compete for three top prizes: additional €25,000, €15,000 or €10,000 in funding. Beyond this, the start-ups will have access to the support and potential investor connections available from EIT Health’s Investor Network and EIT Health’s Living Labs and Test Beds network.

“InnoStars Awards was a great international journey of incubation and acceleration for our start-up. We had the chance to meet fabulous mentors and great advisors, who helped us create a pitch, prepare for meetings with investors as well as supported us with our media content. I am really excited that we were able to take part in this competition” – says Magda Jander, CEO & Partner of UVera, winner of EIT Health InnoStars Awards 2019.

To read more about 2019 InnoStars Grand Final click here.

List of InnoStars Awards semi-finalists for 2020:

• Fetal Health (Hungary) – the team developed a new, currently on the market non-existent gynaecological diagnostic medical device, with which the death and injury of new-borns could be significantly reduced by measuring the fatal EEG and ECG waveforms during pregnancy and labour. The device alerts the medical team in case the baby inside the mother’s womb doesn’t receive enough oxygen.
• OncoChain Analytics (Romania) – the team which creates a research platform based on a huge blockchain database with real-world data about oncological patients in order to generate useful analytics that can orientate research and deliver value-based care for providers. New drugs will get to market faster and cheaper by reducing recruitment times in clinical trials, correctly assessing the feasibility of multi-centric studies design, simulating clinical trial control arms and linking datasets in support of discovery.
• Nocturiglow (Croatia) – for people with physical impairments and night time urination issues, the team created a product which is simple to use and enables the patient to go through their good-night-sleep with more ease. The team developed a urinal bottle with purpose of help people with physical challenges and physiological difficulties, to solve their problem of night time urination by implementation of phosphorescence and design innovation into the classic medical aid.
• Babyndex (Hungary) – product complements the saliva test with computer vision, the application can tell immediately on which days a fertile woman can conceive. The saliva fern test is a reusable way to monitor fertility but the analogue ovulation microscopes used for detecting crystals in dried saliva samples are cumbersome and the results are hard to interpret. Babyndex is the first mobile application that complements the saliva test with computer vision and can increase accuracy.
• PhoenixOrthosis (Hungary) – team supports stroke survivors to make their lives easier and rehabilitation more effectively. The solution is an active hand-finger spasm orthosis. It is utilizing breakthrough technologies to partially recover the missing opening function. The team has the mission to shorten the time to regain the highest possible quality of the activities of daily living. It is a 100% customized slim-fit device designed to support the patient at any time.
• D-Desy (Italy) – is a revolutionary platform for precision medicine and a more efficient chemotherapy. By “hiding” drugs into the patients’ red blood cells it will be possible to reduce the toxic peak and obtain a sustained release in time. The device can work with many existing compounds, being an attractive technology for the pharmaceutical industry.
• Sula (Hungary) – team which developed a device that helps aiming by continuously measuring the angles of the biopsy needle. With this method, the procedure will be faster and more accurate, the radiation exposure of the patient can be minimized and hopefully, morbidity can also be decreased.
• CardioEchoAI (Lithuania) – team which uses a deep learning technology and developed a software which is capable of automatic segmentation of the heart’s anatomical features, functional assessment and the production of a structured report for a physician. Faster, more cost-efficient and accurate cardiovascular diseases diagnosis and management becomes a reality.
• I’m Fine (Romania) – team offers accessible solutions for different mental health disorders, severity stages and while it works best when beneficiaries also go to therapy, they can receive a lot of help just by using the mobile app.
• Face Rehab (Slovakia) – company which is focused on innovative face palsy treatment which is now underestimated in health sector. One of the aspects is that after supervised physiotherapy every patient needs to continue their treatment at home – doing face exercises. These exercises are not under medical supervision and in nearly all cases synkinesis occurs. There is no information or data about that process and observation shows that facing the mirror and seeing disability can bring depression to patient. The solution offers to track patient face movements and create progress data thanks to the mobile application and use of depth camera which creates 3D face model.
• SmartGOC (Latvia) – the team developed an organ-on-chip (OOC) that mimics human intestine on small scale and allows pharmaceutical companies to test drugs faster, cheaper and safer.
• MSing with Trauma (Romania) – the team developed a mobile application that converts MRI images of Multiple Sclerosis patients into unique therapeutic musical compositions. The application is patient innovation based and has two effects: psychological resilience and neurological bypass. The aim of the team is to teach patients how to overcome trauma.
• ENDOBIOS (Portugal) – ENDOBIOS® was founded in September 2018 after ground-breaking datasets showing that our drug candidate, a new natural compound derived from a marine fungus and currently in preclinical trials, could be potentially used against multiple neuropathies. ENDOBIOS® is developing a proprietary screening method for the specific induction of novel neuropathic agents from environmental microbial sources.
• FGD Dosimeter (Italy) -the team developed FGD dosimeter: a passive electronic reusable dosimeter developed to provide rapid and accurate dose measurements for all therapies carried out with radiation, in aim to solve the problem of unskilled or inadequate use of technologies in radiotherapy which can result in potential health hazards for patients and staff.
• Voxi Kids (Romania) -developed with speech pathologists, Voxi Kids app is a bridge between education and health, that enables children to complete an interactive language game based on speech therapy exercises. It is an innovative and accessible product that can be used by qualified professionals for support during speech therapy sessions, but also by parents who wish to help their children improve at home. With over 200 hearing and speaking exercises, Voxi Kids can also be a great tool in helping little kids develop their vocabulary.

Besides the semi-finalists detailed above, EIT Health InnoStars also selected the 20 next best teams and will provide them a €4000 mentoring voucher, which can be used in EIT Health own Mentoring and Coaching Network, consisting of more than 300 highly qualified experts from various professional fields.