Nine Italian start-ups in top EIT Health programmes

The lists of semi-finalists of the two flagship EIT Health competitions for healthcare innovators, Headstart and EIT Health Catapult, have been announced.

Two flagship EIT Health healthcare accelerator programmes have just announced this year’s semi-finalists who will compete for investors’ attention, mentoring, funding support and a place on the podium during Grand Finals in the second half of the year. In the Headstart Programme, EIT Health decided to support 89 healthcare start-ups in Europe, including 17 teams from more progressing regions. Seven start-ups come from Italy, two from Portugal, Poland and Estonia and one from Romania, Hungary, Greece and Latvia. All teams get €40,000 to develop their innovations and entice private investors. The start-ups will compete for an additional €10,000 during the finals. This year, over 150 applications came only from progressing regions of Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. This is three times more than in 2019.

“The key to the development of innovative health systems is in the hands of the next generation: young talents develop healthcare solutions of the future. Our aim is to provide them with thenecessary support, mentoring and networking opportunities. I am very proud to see that there are so many talented young people from progressing regions who work on important health solutions that could make the lives of many people healthier and longer in the future” – said Inês Matias, Business Creation Manager of EIT Health InnoStars.

Immagina Biotechnology, Kyme Nanoimaging, Mysurable, SurgiQ and Syndiag are among Italian Headstart semi-finalists. This year, EIT Health expanded the range of the Headstart competition to assist in the need for solutions to combat COVID-19 and has selected start-ups that will develop products and services that will help Europe to contain, treat and manage this disease. Allelica and Drivesec were recognised from the COVID-190related granted projects from Italy. Allelica uses genomic software to identify people who will develop the highest severity of COVID-19 clinical manifestation. Drivesec, on the other hand, provides a wearable that supports the enforcement of “social distancing” safety rules for COVID-19 pandemic. The team develops technology to monitor working conditions, safety and statuses workers. The list of all the selected projects is available here.

Watch more about InnoStars finalists here.

The second flagship programme, the EIT Health Catapult, offers €40,000 for the first place, €20,000 for the second place, and €10,000 for the third place in three categories: medtech, digital health and biotech, along with high-quality training in business modelling and planning, investment deal negotiation and pitch training as well as facilitated access to top-level experts and investors. Among semi-finalists there are two teams from Italy: HiQ nano and PatchAI. More information about the projects can be found here.

More about the EIT Health Headstart Programme

The EIT Health Headstart programme provides emerging companies with mentorship and funding opportunities to accelerate the development and time-to-market of innovative products and services to improve the lives of European patients and citizens. Mentored by EIT Health’s regional teams of Business Creation Managers, the programme offers support to the companies as they navigate the steps required to bring their solution to market including, crucially, verification of the clinical, patient or system need for the product or service. They are also supported with skills development and contacts so that they can go on to attract further financial support from private investors.

More about the EIT Health Catapult Programme

EIT Health Catapult is listed as one of the six best biotech events in Europe and it is a training and competition programme that boosts the development of top-notch European health start-ups through exposing them to leading experts and international investors. The programme sources and accelerates 42 European start-ups in biotech, medtech and digital health. During five years of its operation, up to 189 start-ups were supported, and more than 225 activated investors and 2500 participants, including mentors, judges, healthcare professionals, participated in the events.