In June, the EIC Tech to Market (T2M) Venture Building Programme, an EIC Business Acceleration Services, proudly showcased 16 groundbreaking innovations during two Tech Demo Days on Medical technologies and medical devices, in collaboration with the EIC Programme Manager Enric Claverol.
Within the Tech Demo Days, which are the entry door to the Programme, the EIC beneficiaries pitch their innovations to a panel of experts, who offer invaluable feedback to help them advance to the next level. Keep reading to know more!
The beneficiaries’ feedback
We spoke with Cristina Durán, representing the project EIC Pathfinder QUSTom, and with Nastassia Knödlseder, the representative of the EIC Pathfinder SKINDEV project.
QUSTom’s innovation leverages advanced algorithms based on Full Waveform Inversion, to create high-resolution images from 3D ultrasound computed tomography data. By deploying this solution in the cloud, it enables other ultrasound computed tomography hardware providers to achieve high-resolution images without needing supercomputers on-site.
SKINDEV is developing a platform based on an engineered skin microbe which can take over functions to benefit human health. Such functions are sensing of disease, production and delivery of therapeutics to treat skin conditions such as e.g acne vulgaris and atopic dermatitis.
For Cristina Durán, the most interesting part of this first phase of the Programme was the interaction with the experts. “Our participation in the EIC Tech to Market Venture Building Programme connected us with industry experts who provided invaluable feedback. This guidance has been instrumental in refining our project and business case, positioning us for new financing opportunities as we advance to the next stage. The insights from experts were extremely beneficial. They helped us improve our pitch deck and business case, and provided a clearer understanding of how to face a Transition project after QUSTom concludes”.
Nastassia Knödlseder also highlighted the experts’ feedback and the T2M team support as the most enriching factors of the Tech Demo Day phase. “The inputs provided by the diverse expert team were very motivating. It was a very interactive session where many valuable questions were asked. The questions were addressed to key challenges to be overcome in the next steps of the project and really helped once again to focus on priorities”.
By participating in this Programme, Cristina and her team aim at “raising awareness of the current challenges in the imaging diagnostics sector in Europe and demonstrating how ultrasound computed tomography, combined with advanced algorithms, can revolutionize the field. By showcasing our technology to European experts, we hope to secure funding to further develop and validate our integrated solution, facilitating our entry into the European market. We believe that Europe can become a lead player in the next generation of medical imaging modalities with the help of the EIC ecosystem”.
What’s next?
These two projects moved to the Opportunities’ Exploration phase of the Programme, where they will receive guidance on feasibility from a team of experts with business insights that can support them with recommendations for improvement.
The experts’ insights
We had the opportunity to talk with Carlos Battyán, CEO at menntun h+t, menntun & mQS, and with Daniel Young, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Digital Health Works.
Both Carlos and Daniel agree that programmes like the EIC Tech to Market Venture Building play a key role in supporting early-stage projects to reach the market. According to Daniel, “teams from research institutions need real-world guidance and support to move a project out of the academic world into a commercial environment. This programme can provide this hands-on support, and the network to generate results”. For Carlos, “providing new points of view to the researchers, mainly in business, and networking with other researchers, experts, business-oriented people and more, let ideas really flow”.
Daniel shared that the most interesting part of the Tech Demo Day was hearing the pitches from the projects’ teams. “The teams were amazing, with some very bold ideas for the future of health care. Hearing the pitches from these project teams was an uplifting experience”, mentioned Daniel.
For Carlos, the most interesting aspect of the Tech Demo Day was the opportunity to learn from the projects’ teams and the other panellists. “The whole interactions between projects' representatives and people with expertise in healthcare solutions development, regulations, entrepreneurship, business, etc. It was an opportunity to learn a lot from each other!”, referred Carlos.
We asked the experts if they could give two pieces of advice to our early-stage innovators, what would they be. Carlos said “keep your mind open to new technologies, methodologies, tools, etc., and keep open to new ways of learning and new advice”. For Daniel, the most relevant advice is “building medtech ventures is a team sport, with each one needing a specialist in their position. Finding a good business lead for most of these teams is imperative for moving beyond a research project into building a sustainable venture. The second is with regulatory: learn about the process and how to properly document technical requirements, verification and validation testing early on, so the burden of documentation downstream will be much more time and resource efficient”.
About the EIC Tech to Market (T2M) Venture Building Programme
The EIC Tech to Market Venture Building Programme aims to help build start-ups to exploit promising research results through venture building services, comprising a range of activities from identification of promising business ideas to venture creation and development.
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DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.