Luminate Medical celebrated by New York’s Nasdaq

Winner of the EIT Health Catapult audience choice award, Luminate Medical celebrated its logo being displayed on New York’s Nasdaq Tower this month, along with a message of congratulations. Catapult is an EIT Health pitching competition that exposes high-potential European start-ups to world-class experts and investors. Luminate Medical took part in the competition pitching its vision is to end chemotherapy-induced side effects like hair loss, by revolutionising the patient experience with a novel technical approach.

EIT Health Catapult finalist celebrated by Nasdaq for winning Alex Casta Audience Choice Award

Chemotherapy use is set to grow by 50% by 2040. 47% of patients say hair loss is the most traumatic part of cancer treatment. During the EIT Health Catapult finals in May 2022, CTO Barbara Oliveira pitched Luminate Medical’s solution. Lily, a portable medical wearable, uses compression therapy to help cancer patients avoid chemotherapy-induced hair loss. Their novel treatment won over the Catapult crowd who voted for Luminate Medical to win the Alex Casta Audience Choice Award, and they took home silver in the MedTech category.

As the Galway-based start-up celebrated its third birthday this month, the team received international recognition on Times Square on foot of the win. The Alex Casta accolade was established after Dr. Alex Casta, an advocate of EIT Health, suddenly passed away during the EIT Health Summit in 2018. Winners of the award are celebrated by having their logo displayed on New York’s Nasdaq Tower. With over 50 million tourists passing through Times Square each year, the Nasdaq Tower is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the world.

“The exposure to a great network of investors and key opinion leaders during EIT Health’s Catapult competition has driven us even further,” said Barbara Oliveira, Co-Founder and CTO at Luminate Medical. “We are extremely thankful for the opportunity to have had our logo displayed on the Nasdaq Tower, and making our mission of improving patient quality-of-life during chemotherapy known to a much larger audience.”

“We are delighted to see outstanding companies like Luminate Medical succeeding in their next investment milestones and profiting from access to mass visibility,” said Anna Badurska, Catapult Team Leader.

“We are thankful to Nasdaq for backing the Catapult Finalists as well as to other sponsors: AstraZeneca, AWS, eg technology, Lusiadas, Merck, and MWE who provide their support to help Catapult start-ups bring innovation to market faster, to improve the lives of millions of patients. After seven years of competitions, and over 270 healthtech companies added to the portfolio, Catapult is a real booster instrument to provide top innovators in Europe the global visibility they deserve.”

Since inception in 2019, Luminate Medical has grown from a team of three to 14, with three of those new members joining since the Catapult finals in May. The team plans to start treating its first patients in early 2023 having made significant progress in the development of its Lily Device. The same week the team won the Alex Casta award, they closed a €5M investment round, led by Elkstone Capital, SciFounders, and Faber.

Applications for Catapult 2023 will open in January. Sign up to our newsletter to be the first to find out programme application deadlines.