Meet the entrepreneurs heading to the UK-Ireland Headstart Award Finals 2019

22 will pitch for up to €50 000 in support in Dublin on 17 July

EIT Health UK-Ireland is proud to announce the 22 finalists chosen to compete for UK-Ireland Headstart awards. These finalists will pitch their business ideas in Dublin, Ireland, on 17 July 2019, in front of an expert jury comprised of industry representatives, business mentors, venture capitalists and EIT Health Partners.

Those chosen as winners will receive EIT Health Headstart Awards, which can be as high as €50 000 and are designed to support recipients in overcoming short-term hurdles and strengthening their business profile, so they can realise the next steps towards the market with their healthcare innovations.

The winners will also be invited to present their pitches to the public during an exciting event, Innovating the Future of Healthcare in Ireland and the UK, which will gather delegates from industry, academia, healthcare providers, investors and start-ups to talk about how different sectors can work together to support innovation. We happily invite all EIT Health UK-Ireland partners and friends to join us and learn about the newest innovations being developed within our network. We look forward to seeing you there! (Register here.)

The 22 nominees, at a glance:

Head Diagnostics (iTremor): iTremor ONE is a new era cutting-edge technology and associated hand-held medical device aimed at providing an objective assessment of concussion (mTBI – mild traumatic brain injury) in under 10 seconds. iTremor ONE does not require an initial baseline test, is non-invasive and is easy to use for all levels of clinicians and non-clinicians. The core focus is to provide for better patient outcomes, whilst avoiding the unnecessary use of CT where possible, especially in paediatrics.

SmashMedicine: SmashMedicine is a digital innovative EdTech platform that promotes deep-learning by combining multiple learning modalities with gamification to make learning medicine fun. SmashMedicine gives students access to examination-quality, crowd-sourced questions and uses novel machine-learning methods to vastly improve students’ diagnostic ability.

Relevium: Relevium Ltd. have developed the world’s first Hydrogel solution (Hydrobloc) which is a drug free treatment for Chronic Neuropathic Pain. This disruptive drug replacement therapy will be used to treat any form of Neuropathic Pain. Hydrobloc is a medical implant that gives at least three times longer pain relief (up to 12 months) than current pharmaceutical injectable treatments. Free from any side effects, the Hydrobloc technology will completely disrupt the therapeutic landscape for patients with chronic pain. Another major clinical benefit is that, as the material degrades, it supports the repair and regeneration of damaged tissue.

NNOVA AI Technologies Limited: Surgeons and sales reps need to document complex implants deployed into a patient, both for medical history and reordering. Current manual documentation protocol causes up to 30-minute delays during orthopaedic surgery, is error prone, and brings risk of complications. The problem was identified by NNOVA co-founder, orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Baumgartner. NNOVA 3D scanner documents the implants directly on the sterile side, saving €3 000 per day per operating theatre. When the surgeon decides on the implant part they want to use, they simply place it onto the device where it is scanned and recorded, much like a supermarket self-checkout. The implant is recognised based on its form. The recognition relies on Deep Learning based on the form of an implant. The approach is manufacturer agnostic and works for all implants deployed at a particular hospital. The use of AI in the operating theatre has no current analogues.

Luminate Medical: Luminate Medical is developing a new solution to prevent chemotherapy induced alopecia. It is comfortable, portable and dignified. Using a novel non-thermal method, the existing biological mechanism for preventing hair loss during chemotherapy is mimicked, to provide a completely patient-focused solution.

Kite Medical Ltd: KITE is the first non-invasive, radiation-free system to detect and monitor kidney reflux in children. It will provide significant cost savings and ultimately move this procedure to primary or community care setting. KITE will support preventative healthcare through early screening and data can be used to predict other urological conditions. KITE has no direct competitor and therefore has first mover advantage and has been described as a market disrupter by clinicians.

Team Resilience Limited (Team of Life): The Team of Life is a narrative therapy approach to building resilience and well-being among children and young people. Using the language of sport, the Team of Life invites young people to identify key support people or “team-mates” in their lives, enabling them to build a sense of social support and connected identity. Every Team of Life is co-created with young people and provides a meaningful way to develop rich strength-based stories of skill and knowledge for tackling problems, avoiding obstacles and achieving goals. The approach not only develops individual skills in children but also moves beyond this to build sustainable support networks at the level of communities and teams, reducing loneliness, improving prosocial behaviour and promoting community spirit. This funding will enable us to build and test an App and learning platform where members of the Team of Life community can interact, share and learn from one another.

Starling Surgical (Quickstitch): Surgical wounds are closed with sutures or staples, both have drawbacks. Sutures are the gold standard but are slow, increasing anaesthetic related complications and costs of procedures. Staples can speed up wound closure by 20mins but have increased pain, higher infection rates and worse cosmetic results than sutures. The QuickStitch will disrupt this $3 billion market by enabling surgeons to close incisions faster than staples, with superior clinical results to sutures.

Heaviside Ltd: This technology will revolutionise the speed, cost and accuracy of diagnosing urinary symptoms. This device will allow doctors to determine the cause of urinary problems earlier, and with greater consistency, than current methods.

Endowave Ltd.: The Endowave Flexible Microwave Ablation Probe will enable lung cancer patients to be treated at an earlier stage of the disease and in a minimally invasive manner, thus substantially improving survival rates and significantly decreasing healthcare costs.

Percetto Medical: The Percetto Medical Image-guided catheter system enables physicians to deliver therapies via the blood vessels to the heart and other organs. The product addresses key technical challenges encountered by physicians performing complex interventional cardiology and complex interventional oncology procedures. The Image-guided catheter system enables physicians to improve their procedure success rates and achieve better outcomes for more patients. The system makes it possible to reduce procedure complexity and the risk of complications, reduce average procedure times, thereby reducing patient and physician radiation dose and contrast use, and reduce expenditure on other supplies (i.e. other devices). The image-guided catheter system will improve the adaption of complex interventional procedures in hospitals worldwide.

Transformative AI (CodeRhythm): Transformative creates algorithms to predict acute outcomes of chronic diseases. Their initial focus is on predicting Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) before it occurs. Using advanced AI and statistical analysis techniques from CERN and Cambridge, Transformative’s algorithm detects minute changes in patient physiology and predicts an imminent risk of SCA. The prototype, CodeRhythm, predicts SCA within minutes with high accuracy on cardiac data. It would serve as the basis for a SaaS early warning system that would alert clinicians and improve survival for a broad spectrum of high-risk patients.

Knee Tracker Ltd.: Knee Tracker is an innovative patented device that encourages and remotely monitors rehabilitation in patients having knee surgery. It was developed by a Knee surgeon and a physiotherapist working with their patients. It communicates with a dedicated app on the user’s own smartphone and shows the user in real-time how well they’re doing their rehabilitation.

iBreve (e-Prev): iBreve develops self-care solutions that focus on prevention and promote healthy living. iBreve’s new patent-pending wearable technology analyses respiratory patterns in real-time, enabling market applications for stress reduction, remote monitoring and chronic disease management. Experts in epilepsy believe that small changes in respiratory patterns could be the missing piece in predicting epileptic seizures. The unpredictability of seizures is the biggest burden as it impedes a normal life. Predicting the probability and severity of seizures allows patients to enjoy greater freedom in their daily lives and prevents injuries from falls. e-Prev is a preventative self-care tool that assists patients to monitor and identify triggers, suggest preventive behaviours and ultimately predict seizures. iBreve won several innovation challenges, received funding for its dedication to sustainability & was featured in newspapers around the world.

Redwing Business Intelligence Ltd (Oriole): The ORIOLE cloud service provides the information hospitals need, to enable a programme of sustainable improvement in operating theatre effectiveness. ORIOLE analytics help to make the most efficient use of operating theatre resources, which works to minimise costs and improve patient safety. ORIOLE was developed in close collaboration with clinicians and senior managers. It provides comprehensive analytics from the raw data in existing Operating Room systems. These provide the key information needed to inform the Plan and Study phases of the Plan-Do-Study-Adjust continuous improvement cycle.

FeelTect (Tight Alright): FeelTect delivers a connected health solution for measuring and monitoring sub-bandage pressure during compression therapy, primarily in the treatment of venous leg ulcers. The device, Tight Alright, helps realise the full potential of compression therapy, through safety, efficacy, and empowerment. Tight Alright is unique in its handling and functionality, it’s designed for easy use by healthcare professionals, carers, and patients alike. The clip design has an inner arm housing the pressure sensing region that is placed beneath the bandage, and an outer arm housing the electronics that remains outside the bandage and transmits wireless signals to a mobile app. The clip properties have been tuned to provide a balance between comfort and safety to the patient, with sufficient flexural rigidity for insertion. The low-profile design offers unobtrusive, accurate pressure measurement at any point on the leg, while the hinge facilitates uninhibited and versatile placement with easy securement to the bandage.

Vitrue Health: Their mission is to change the way we assess and treat musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions across healthcare. Currently MSK assessments are based on sight alone or basic and subjective tools like goniometers. This leads to the majority of assessments just being “eye balled” and producing non repeatable, inaccurate and subjective data. Vitrue have developed a depth camera-based device that can automatically track and assess a patient’s motor function. The device will automatically detect and assess movements of interest such as sit to stand transitions or standing squats, calculate biomechanical metrics for these and provide the clinician with a standardised and visual report detailing the patient’s motor function.

MPH Support Ltd. (Triple Tread): Triple Tread® is an innovative, patent protected and award-winning trike designed to motivate regular physical activity. This can promote social interaction and positive wellbeing for the ageing population. Triple Tread® is also for those unable to balance on a two-wheel bicycle, due to neurological conditions. Regular aerobic activity reduces costs to the individual and health systems.

Incareview: Incareview will significantly reduce avoidable readmissions though an in-hospital discharge application and the patient’s personal application which carries their discharge care plan.

AVeta Medical: Vaginal atrophy is a chronic and progressive condition that has a significant impact on the quality of life of women and will be experienced by 80% at some point in their lives, due to hormonal changes. It is the most common symptom of the menopause and 60% of breast cancer survivors suffer from it due to chemotherapy. The use of hormone therapy is contra-indicated for breast cancer survivors. AVeta is a safe, non-hormonal, affordable, medical device to treat vaginal atrophy for all women. AVeta will be prescribed by a physician in an outpatient setting, whereby women will be able to self-administer the therapeutic effect of the device on a once monthly in the comfort of their own home. AVeta will be the first medical device designed for women by women to empower women to reclaim their sexual health, well-being and change their quality of life for the better.

Xploro: Xploro® is an award-winning health information platform that uses augmented reality, gameplay and artificial intelligence to deliver health information to young patients in a way that makes them feel empowered, engaged and informed, whilst having fun at the same time. By putting health information in the hands of children, using language they understand and interaction paradigms they are familiar with, Exploro aims to reduce their stress and anxiety and improve their clinical outcomes. Reducing the fear associated with procedures can reduce repeat procedures and shorten treatment times. Finally, by improving child health literacy it will provide the foundations for a generation of patients better able to self-manage their healthcare.

Jelly Drops Ltd: Dehydration is one of the leading causes of death for people with dementia. Many people with dementia are no longer aware of thirst, do not equate drinking with quenching thirst or do not recognise cups for what they are. People with dementia often find eating more intuitive than drinking. One way to overcome this is to offer them a treat! This format excites people with dementia, they instantly recognise it and know how to interact with it. Jelly Drops are hydrating treats that enable people with dementia to hydrate more often and independently. Online videos have received over 100 million views and Jelly Drops have been featured on BBC, Sky and on the TEDx stage. There is now a waiting list of 15,000 people and 1,000 care homes and the team is supported by the Alzheimer’s Society, the UK’s leading dementia research and support charity.