Join the EIT Health InnoStars Grand Final and watch start-up pitches from the first-class talent scouts in healthcare innovation.

EIT Health announces the upcoming InnoStars Grand Final 2023 set to unite the finest in healthcare solutions from Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe. Scheduled to be streamed live on November 7-8, 2023, the event promises to spotlight the pinnacle of healthcare innovation within the region. Secure your spot today and be at the forefront of health tech innovation. 

The EIT Health InnoStars Grand Final 2023 will feature 40 start-ups, participants of the InnoStars Awards, Attract to Invest and RIS Innovation Call – the EIT Health prominent accelerator programmes. The founders will present their health tech solutions to an international panel of judges to win additional funding and connect with the investors. These start-ups are pioneers in various health tech domains in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe – from therapeutic strategies for Parkinson’s to Bioengineered Organ Transplantation and mRNA Therapeutic Technologies. The competing start-ups will also have a chance to win the InnoStars Community Award for the most promising healthcare solution. Through the online voting viewers will decide which start-up possesses the innovation, passion, and potential to transform the future of healthcare.

The InnoStars Awards programme helps transform prototypes and MVPs into health solutions or products and bring them to the market. Over the last seven years, more than 100 start-ups have been trained and more than half have been successful in the market. The InnoStars Awards is also a unique place for investors looking for gems in biotech, medtech and life sciences. Start-ups pitching for up to €25 000 to launch their product or service, find their first customers and get in connection with EIT Health Partners from all over Europe. In the pool of 10 finalist start-ups there is one from Italy, 3 from Portugal, one from Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Greece, Romania and Spain. Their activities range from innovative therapies for Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC), or for Parkinson’s disease or for early stages of diabetic retinopathy (ESDR) to treatment options for hard-to-treat cancers like pancreatic, ovarian, triple-negative breast, and castrate-resistant prostate cancers. One of the team’s missions is to eliminate the organ transplant list with a unique method to bioengineer personalized human livers, another team is developing a wearable medical device for a skin condition (psoriasis, eczema, and vitiligo) treatment that utilizes UV phototherapy, which can be used at home by patients. Amongst the future solutions there are several devices, like a digital supplement delivered as a phone and smartwatch app that improves mood through vibrations during sleep or a stand-alone non-invasive Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) enabling paralyzed patients to communicate independently.

The other start-up programme, RIS Innovation Call 2023 is a unique programme that offers access to funding, mentoring, training services and networking opportunities to health innovators from the Regional Innovation Scheme countries in the proof-of concept phase. The top 10 selected promising innovations come from Greece, Slovenia, Romania and, with the highest number of projects, Portugal. The innovation projects receive support to tackle health challenges related, among others, to oncology, diabetes, urology and mental health. The consortia behind the chosen innovations will be granted funding of up to €75 000 for further development of their breakthrough product or solution, mentoring, a place at a bootcamp, and access to potential investors and partners through EIT Health, a network of best-in-class health innovators with approximately 150 member organisations.

The third start-up programme, Attract To Invest, prepares companies for successful investment rounds. During the programme, teams receive smart money, learn practical fundraising skills, gain funding for improving their products or services, and extend their professional network. The programme supports micro and small enterprises, spin-offs and start-ups that already have a prototype, MVP or final product, available for customers in at least one EU market, and product/service already generates revenue. Amongst the participants of the 2023 edition of Attract to Invest programme there is an Italian start-up competing with 5 Greek pitching teams, Spanish, Latvian, Polish, Romanian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Czech, Slovak and Portuguese. The innovations of the 20 start-ups range from an innovative passive exoskeleton platform to an AI-based platform for affordable remote medical-grade cardiac diagnostics through a software designed for the early diagnosis of bronchopulmonary and colorectal cancer to a tool to help rehabilitation specialists prescribe and automate multi-domain stroke recovery programmes – just to name a few.