Registration closes: 27th October
The InnoStars Awards is a key acceleration programme for early-stage start-ups from Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, where the pace of innovation is more moderate.
The programme helps transform prototypes and MVPs into health solutions or products and bring them to the market. Over the last seven years, more than 100 start-ups have been trained and more than half have been successful in the market.
The InnoStars Awards is also a unique place for investors looking for gems in biotech, MedTech and life sciences, and a must-attend pit stop in the healthcare start-up journey.
InnoStars Awards programme is suitable for micro and small enterprises (according to EU SME definition), spin-offs and start-ups that already have a prototype or a MVP, but product/service is not on the market yet (no income). The company must be incorporated/registered before the sub-granting agreement initiation.
CoviCell skin patch diagnostics
CelluVir Technology
Viral diseases pose a significant threat to global health, and the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has highlighted the need for innovative diagnostic tools. No affordable diagnostic methods are available for assessing antiviral cellular immunity, either in reconvalescent or vaccinated individuals. The CoviCell skin patch, covered by international patent applications, is a non-invasive, inexpensive technology to quantitatively assess this cellular immunity.
Seedchrony
Manina Medical
Manina Medtech is a seed stage startup with a B2B business model and the vision that every woman who goes through In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment requires a single IVF cycle to get pregnant. We boost IVF success, helping doctors in decision making by detecting the right timing for embryo transfer non-invasively and immediately.
Rapid test for respiratory superbugs
Nanodecal
Nanodecal is developing a rapid diagnostic test for preventing incurable pneumonia. The test detects the superbugs responsible for the pneumonia in less than 10 minutes by the bedside. This will help clinicians prescribe the right antibiotic for killing the superbug before the infection becomes permanent. Our tests combine the excellent sensitivity and specificity of PCR with the rapid, decentralized analysis afforded by antigen tests. Our market includes over 200 million people suffering from chronic lung disease, who are at risk of suffering incurable pneumonia.
Sitagliptin eye drops
D-Sight
D-Sight is developing a new innovative therapeutic approach for early stages of diabetic retinopathy (ESDR), the most common microvascular complication of diabetes and the leading cause of preventable visual disability and blindness in working-age population throughout the world. There are currently no treatments for ESDR, and the existing treatments for advance stages of the disease are invasive and present several adverse effects. Our solution, based in the topical administration of sitagliptin eye drops, addresses a wide-spread unmet medical need with a cost-effective and safe approach. It also prevents side-effects and limitations associated to current standard-of-care therapies.
ScreeNIB, a prostate cancer smart screening
NIB Biotec
NIB biotec own a patent that claims the use of urinary molecules as biomarkers for prostate cancer, with better diagnostic performance compared to the current standard of care. We have developed ScreeNIB, a smart biosensor that can rapidly provide information about the presence of prostate cancer by an urologist at a patient site in order to simplify the diagnostic paths, minimize the steps in hospitals and decentralize first-line exams outside the hospitals and towards local areas.
MEEVA
On average, 1 every 100 EU children are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) and rates are rising in all Countries. Rehabilitation services are struggling to meet demand, because health professionals are lacking and current in presence therapies are hardly scalable. MEEVA aims at innovating therapies for ASC teens through a digital platform leveraging Virtual Reality and ML-based data analytics, a solution developed thanks to a previous EIT-funded project. Preliminary studies of the multi-player VR serious game designed together with therapists have shown high acceptance, strong engagement and increased social interaction among teens. The team is currently engaged in 3 experimental pilots paid by 3 clinical organisations in Italy.
Beat Therapeutics
BEAT Therapeutics is addressing the profound lack of effective treatment options affecting 1.7 million new patients diagnosed each year with hard-to-treat cancers (pancreatic, ovarian, triple-negative breast, and castrate-resistant prostate cancers). Our team developed, characterized, and patented a new anti-tumour agent, BBIT20. BBIT20 is a breakthrough targeted therapy that disrupts a vital pathway in cancer cells and inhibits their DNA repair. In pre-clinical models BBIT20 shows 4 to 20-fold higher efficacy in relation to chemotherapy and targeted therapies, with lower doses and a proven safety profile. Overall, it has the potential to translate into a therapy offering higher clinical benefits for patients while minimizing side effects.
Orgavalue
I-R3Therapies
The mission of team is to eliminate the organ transplant list. Orgavalue establishes a unique method to bioengineer personalized human livers, a market opportunity of €8.8 billion. Despite progress in medical therapies, the WHO estimates that only 10% of the worldwide need for organ transplantation is being met. In EU, 40 people die each day, and every 9 minutes one person is add to the waiting list. Nowadays, Europe has an 88 M of Massive loss of healthy life years in the EU27+5. Until 2050, the aged people above 55 - the risk group for need for an organ, will be around 42% in Europe. The tean expects to reach the market in 2028, in a B2B (hospitals/insurance companies), acquiring a possible profit of €342M (6 years), between Portugal and Spanish market.
IPLEXMED Resp
Chronic respiratory disease patients, a 1 billion worldwide, are highly prone to respiratory infections, which are often antimicrobial resistant, contributing to irreversible lung damage and premature death. IPLEXMED's breakthrough solution enables fast and reliable detection of multiple infectious agents and their drug resistance profile at point-of-care and at-home, empowering personalized treatment and real-time disease monitoring. This saves healthcare providers costs by avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations, whyle promotes healthier aging and improves disease management, especially for the elderly.
eBreathie
Ebreathie – Breating Solutions
eBreathie is a smart-inhaler - a medical device that turns a patient's traditional inhaler into a "smart", connectable one. Through a sensor attached to the inhaler the patient already uses, we are able to transmit useful and reliable information to a mobile application and a patients’ management platform. Our product tells the patients and their doctors when they did their medication and if they did it correctly, while also recording the symptoms the patients enters autonomously in the mobile app. This allows these doctors to telemonitor their patients while giving a more personalized and patient-centered medical care, facilitating telemedicine procedures, and eliminating healthcare access constraints.
ImmunoPaci
MB Biofita
1 from 7 babies develop oral thrush. It's an unpleasant infection causing pain and distressed behaviors in babies. The team has reinvented the baby pacifier by infusing it with active bio-composites from 8 different natural plants that strengthen the immune system – and they have a working demonstrator. It is a painless preventative solution superior to the antifungal gels and drops available. The team plans to compete in the $400M baby pacifier market by offering a product with superior USP to caring mothers looking to strengthen their child's immunity and prevent disease.
Emplastrum wearable
Emplastrum
Emplastrum has developed a wearable medical device for a skin condition (psoriasis, eczema, and vitiligo) treatment that utilizes UV phototherapy, which can be used at home by patients. The device is connected with telemedicine to ensure safe communication between physicians and patients. The physician can prescribe the appropriate dose of treatment and track treatment results. Emplastrum's device provides patients with an effective psoriasis treatment option, which avoids unnecessary UV rays that can cause skin cancer, and allows patients to carry on with their daily activities during treatment.
PeryView
Reon
PeryView is a user-friendly web saas application that enables visual field testing in the comfort of a patient's own home, including for individuals aged 60+. The test takes between 5-20 minutes and can be used as a screening tool to detect early symptoms of diseases such as glaucoma and other neuropathies. Early detection is crucial since these conditions can lead to blindness if left untreated. Additionally, preliminary tests were conducted on a group of 37 patients aged 6-60 diagnosed with glaucoma (2022). Our tests demonstrated that PeryView's results are fully comparable with standard perimetry tests, and we have confirmed that the application is easy to use for all age groups.
IQ Biozoom
IQ Biozoom- New Era for biomarkers monitoring at home. Current home-tests give info only about presense or absence of biomarker. IQBZ’s tests will define the exact concentration level of the biomarkers in body fluids in real-time. The technology means non-invasive monitoring of glikemia, Hashimoto, fertility problems, human metabolism at home. We develop non-invasive, pain-free saliva-based monitors that enables the glucose and hormones home-testing from saliva and other body fluids. Our technology allows to define the concentration of biomarkers in a very exact way, at home. A product is an universal pen + disposable measuring strips. The results of testing can be sent to app and analize retrospectively.
MoodZ
SC RD ZED
MoodZ is a digital supplement delivered as a phone and smartwatch app that improves mood through vibrations during sleep. It tackles the ever growing challenge of mood disorders, currently affecting 1 in 10 Europeans. Its unique and patented approach is to reduce REM sleep through vibrations strong enough to change brain electrical activity without waking up the user. This ensures appropriate reserve of monoamines during the first hours of the morning. MoodZ will be available as a consumer product for a monthly subscription and a B2B employee benefit for corporate customers. Our team's expertise in Psychiatry, Neuroscience and IT builds trust and generates a scientific approach to happiness.
First-in-class LRRK2-targeted Parkinson's Disease Treatment
Anacalypsis Therapeutics
Anacalypsis Therapeutics is an early-stage biotech company discovering novel therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerative diseases. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the fastest growing neurodegenerative disease, affecting approximately 10M people globally. In most neurodegenerative diseases, including PD, there are no disease-modifying therapies that can disrupt the progression of the disease. This is compounded by the fact that by the time diagnosis is made, significant irreversible neurodegeneration has already occurred. The approach of the team is that therapeutic development is the structure-based design of compounds that disrupt specific protein-protein interactions linked to neurodegeneration.
BirgerMind
BirgerMind builds sustainable stand-alone non-invasive Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) enabling paralyzed patients to communicate independently. The team is developing both: a low-energy flexible mobile brain-reading headgear and a scalable software, which adopts to users' brain signals for basic communication and for controlling dedicated apps. The focus is on assisting Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Motor neurone disease (MND) patients in their everyday living. Our platform is 100% wheelchair-friendly and it includes novel thought-to-speech engine and a, easy-to-use controller providing chat, email, call-for-help and book-reading services, as well as an ALS-optimised browser for access to social media, news and various apps.
Sensible Biotechnologies
The future of mRNA therapeutics is hampered by manufacturing challenges and unless solved, its exciting potential may never be realised. Sensible Biotechnologies is on a journey to solve this problem by turning living cells into factories producing abundant, highly stable and non-immunogenic mRNA on demand.
Sensible Bio, co-founded by Miroslav Gasparek and Marian Kupculak, benefits from its founders' extensive experience in life sciences. Gasparek, an Oxford PhD candidate, has research experience in biosecurity and has worked with VC funds and institutions like WHO. Kupculak, also Oxford-trained, has 9+ years of experience engineering living cells.
