Eight Catalan start-ups present innovative healthcare technology at Health 2.0 Europe fair
<p>Biocat participated in a talk about corporate ventures and digital health by Moebio Academic Director Jorge Juan Fernández</p>
A total of eight Catalan start-ups participated in the Health 2.0 Europe congress from 3 to 5 May, showcasing their innovative healthcare technology and devices. The fair, one of the most well-known in this sector in Europe, was held at Fira de Barcelona Montjuïc and brought together more than 600 start-ups from over 40 countries. This allowed local companies to make themselves known internationally and connect with possible clients, partners and investors.
The booth for Catalan companies, coordinated by Catalonia Trade & Investment (ACCIÓ), featured B-Wom (which offers personalized intimate-health plans for women), Iomed (developing software to make doctors’ jobs easier), Made of Genes (genome sequencing), Mediktor, Mind the Byte (computational drug design), Neuroelectrics (neuron stimulation and monitoring to treat mental disorders), Play Benefit and Sense4Care (developing a device to monitor Parkinson symptoms at all times).
Event for European digital health investors
The day before the fair began, on 3 May, the 5th 'EC2VC Investors Forum and Pitch Competition' took place, moderated by Roberto Ascione, CEO of Healthware International (Italy) and Vishal Gulati, venture partner at Draper Esprit PLC (United Kingdom). The forum attracted more than 50 digital health investors and featured 13 European SMEs looking for funding. Two of these were Catalan: BeYou Health Coach (an app to promote healthy living) and Linkcare Health Services SL (a spin-off of Hospital Clinic to take knowledge and products developed at the hospital to market). The winners were I-VITAE (Italy) and Molecular Warehouse (United Kingdom).
The event also included several talks on the future of digital health investment, including one by Jorge Juan Fernández, academic director of Moebio (a Biocat initiative), who spoke about the role of corporate ventures in the digital health sector.
Mediktor and PlayBenefit, stars of the congress
At the fair, Mediktor presented its technology for pre-medical diagnosis using artificial intelligence. The company shared the results of two clinical trials conducted at Hospital Clínic Barcelona and Hospital Clínico San Carlos in Madrid, validating the technology’s level of certainty and prediction over more than 1,500 real cases. Specifically, Mediktor provided the same diagnosis as a doctor in 91.3% of the cases. In addition to participating in Health 2.0 Europe, Mediktor was also one of the winners of the eHealth Competition, an initiative that recognizes SMEs with the best digital health initiatives in Europe.
The technology Mediktor has developed combines artificial intelligence, natural language recognition and patient records to detect symptoms and offer a list of possible conditions, recommendations and can even put the patient in touch with a medical professional online for additional advice.
Play Benefit also took advantage of this opportunity to present their solution, a mobile app to improve user health through gaming. Founded by a nurse in 2014, Benergy App (the name of the app) uses suggestive, indirect questions to establish patterns that help users set goals in areas like eating habits, physical activity, sleep and digestion.
The app is expected to be available this summer for iOS and Android, and will first be distributed in Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. Plus, the company has signed a deal with a distributor in Mexico to come up with an expansion strategy for this country.