d·HEALTH Barcelona projects take half of all awards at EIT Health Innovation Fellowship Alumni Showcase
<p>The start-ups from the program promoted by Biocat triumphed at a pitch competition in Stockholm</p>
Four projects from the Design Health Barcelona (d·HEALTH Barcelona) program, a ground-breaking fellowship promoted by Biocat to develop the healthcare innovators and entrepreneurs of the future, walked away with half of all the prizes in a pitch competition held by EIT Health in Stockholm. In total, the Catalan projects won €7,000 of the €15,000 on the table.
The competition was held on 30 November and 1 December as part of the EIT Health Innovation Fellowship Alumni Showcase. Several projects from biodesign programs in Europe, specifically Ireland, Sweden, Oxford and Spain, pitched their solutions to unmet clinical needs they had identified in hospitals. Some of the international projects competing were TADA Medical, Invent, Venari Medical and BreathOX.
The competition had two categories, the first of which was the senior category for projects founded by alumni that graduated before 2016. The second prize in this category (€2,500) went to Mowoot, a start-up from the first edition of d·HEALTH Barcelona that has launched to market a non-invasive medical device to treat chronic constipation based on a need detected at Institut Guttmann. Another d·HEALTH Barcelona project, Myqup Medical, took third prize in this category (€1,500) with their device for fecal incontinence. First prize in this category went to Swedish project TADA Medical for their connector to prevent damage in patients on IVs.
In the junior category, for alumni that graduated in 2016 and 2017, two projects from d·HEALTH Barcelona 2017 took second and fourth place, winning €2,000 and €1,000 respectively. These were o4ophthalmology, a project that came out of Institut Guttmann that proposes a telemedicine solution to ocular diseases, and Happy Injections, a project that came out of Hospital Sant Joan de Déu that is working to overcome children’s fear of needles. First prize in this category went to Irish project Venari Medical, which is developing a treatment for varicose veins.
At the event, EIT Health presented its Alumni network and acceleration activities for business projects. Plus, representatives from the projects participated in group sessions to discuss the challenges they are coming up against in moving forward with their respective business projects.
d·HEALTH Barcelona accepting applications for next edition
Design Health Barcelona (d·HEALTH Barcelona) is a groundbreaking 39-week fellowship inspired by the prestigious Stanford Biodesign program that seeks to train and guide fellows through the biodesign process. Several business projects have already been launched by fellows from the first three editions and 97% of alumni have found a job in the healthcare sector.
During the program, multidisciplinary teams of four fellows with experience in the life sciences, engineering, business and design undergo a full innovation cycle – from identifying needs in hospitals to prototyping – guided by more than 70 international experts.
Called “probably the most impressive accelerator/fellowship program we've seen emerge in Europe” by Health Startup Europe, d·HEALTH Barcelona works with Hospital Clinic, Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Institut Guttmann and the Vall d'Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus. The fifth course of the fellowship will begin in January 2018.
As part of the EIT Health consortium, the d·HEALTH teams have the chance to interact with fellows on similar courses elsewhere in Europe: validating the needs identified in other ecosystems (Karolinska, Sweden and Galway, Ireland), connecting with other biomedical and entrepreneurial ecosystems, and attending meetings with fellows from other programs to share experiences.
d·HEALTH Barcelona is now accepting applications for the next class of fellows, which will begin in January 2018. Find out how to apply here.