Greasing the MedTech wheels with novel European startups gaining ground during the Reactor’22 Demo Day!

The integration of Digital Health solutions into MedTech is becoming ever more important as the future pathway of the industry develops. The MedTech market is dominated by the US and the EU, globally worth more than half a trillion USD, expected to reach $595 bn by 2024 as Evaluate Ltd. MedTech consensus forecasts. In terms of sales, the US leads with 39% global share, followed by the EU (26%), however, the Asia-Pacific region is expected to overtake the EU, and rise to second place by 2023, showing considerably faster growth, as the region is poised to become the engine of the global economy. There is an urgent need for digital health innovation in Europe and the key players recognize the need for innovating new solutions to make healthcare systems more resilient, accessible and effective.

HVL's Reactor Accelerator, powered by GE Healthcare has recently graduated its fifth cohort of startups, with the 2022 class presenting about their growth and promising partnerships at the programme’s annual Demo Day at GE Healthcare's HQ in Hungary, Budapest on Friday, June 17th, 2022.

“Innovation is key for the dynamic growth of healthcare companies that flourish best with cooperation and partnerships in academia, industry and entrepreneurial sectors. GE Healthcare is proudly supporting initiatives like Health Venture Lab, that bring together brilliant ideas, the right partners and disruptive innovators accelerating the advancement of the European healthcare”, welcomed all of the Reactor Demo Day participants by Kostas Deligiannis, GM Eastern Europe at GE Healthcare.

Health Venture Lab (HVL) attracted the most auspicious disruptors in the industry to provide them with an inspiring environment, and development opportunities to boost their business growth. Among dozens of applicants across Europe, HVL has selected the most promising projects and presented their progress in the programme to influential guests during the much anticipated in-person Demo Day event.

The Reactor'22 cohort of 17 teams gained stirring value in 4 intensive remote sprints, making it flexible enough for MVP-stage startups from across Europe to participate. Startups got unique access and hands-on support from global leaders and top healthcare experts in emerging technologies from the programme's main partners: the University of Debrecen (UD), Medical University of Lodz (MUL), GE Healthcare, EIT Health and IESE Business School.

“The MedTech transformation is a process that involves all industry participants to engage: from governments, patients and medical community to major corporations of leading medical technologies like GE Healthcare and inevitably the innovators of novel digital solutions in healthcare. That is why I strongly believe in the collaboration and supportive ecosystem that GE Healthcare established with the HVL's Reactor, the Edison Accelerator and Developer programme becoming the engines driving digital innovation and enabling great solutions for precision health.”, shared Jan Beger, Sr. Director, Digital Ecosystem at GE Healthcare while talking about Digital Health innovation.

 What is unique about Reactor’s Demo Day is that it did not feature the standard pitching sessions from each startup team, but instead concentrated on the thought-provoking success stories from selected alumni, as well as from this year's cohort team, in the form of in-depth panel discussion curated by David Trayford. Additionally, it brought networking to the next level with dedicated 1:1 sessions in a "speed dating" format with a 7-minute rotation of each startup and a pool of investors, decision-makers and industry leaders. These sessions were a valuable instrument in providing support on testing and validation of new ideas, giving insight into the MedTech field, solving pain points teams couldn’t seem to move past and discussing potential collaborations.

“Fundraising from the right actors at the right time is one of the key challenges entrepreneurs and young companies face. There is huge interest in Europe and amongst the EIT Health-EIF Venture Centre of Excellence (VCoE) investor members in European startups, who would like to continue to grow in Europe and for whom our programme can help to connect them with the right partners. This, in turn, helps ensure that European Life Science innovation is successfully translated from earlier-stage companies to later-stage ones; and ultimately to citizens, patients, and European markets." – highlighted by Isaac Middlemann, VCoE Programme Director, EIT Health in his video message providing a potential way for future growth.  

The headline keynote for the Reactor'22 Demo Day was delivered by Nina Sesto, health-tech entrepreneur and TEDx speaker from Zagreb, Croatia who is proving to be a true architect of the healthcare of tomorrow, describing the future of healthcare innovation, where it is headed and why most of the MedTech startups fail to scale up.

The Demo Day event focused on how the Reactor'22 cohort teams have increased their performance and proved to have exceptionally unique products with high potential to attract business customers. As a result of the event, the HVL team and GE Healthcare Executives highlighted 3 teams of which one was awarded as the "Most Promising Team":

• AI Minded (Romania) - accelerates cancer treatment by using artificial intelligence in radiotherapy hospitals by reducing analysis time by more than 95%.
• Acorai (Sweden) - produces a medical device for non-invasive monitoring of intracardiac pressure aiming to reduce re-hospitalizations and mortality rates due to heart failure.
• AIGEA Medical *winner​* (Italy) - focuses on AI application in Radiology workflows and Digital Imaging with DeepMammo for early detection of breast cancer.

“This is an exciting time for MedTech and we are here for it! AIGEA Medical is a young startup, born from an idea that I shared with my cofounder, Federico Picardi: exploiting the power of Artificial Intelligence for early cancer diagnosis, so to make women more healthy and happy. We are thankful to find so many supporters at the Reactor programme who are there to make our dreams come true. Receiving HVL’s award of recognition tells us that we are on the right track, and we are very grateful that they justify it with the deep expertise and commitment of our team!” says Carlo Aliprandi, CEO of AIGEA Medical.

After graduating from the Reactor, founders got to know their business on a much deeper level as they consulted with various experts, advisors and investors who can look at the project from their own point of view bringing years of experience to the table. Startups had the chance to introduce guests to their products, participate in the 1:1 meetings with potential partners and investors as well as showcase their significantly improved public speaking as well the indispensable development in their respective businesses.

The event was a vivid indication that the medical industry continues to be one of the most diverse and innovative sectors. This can be seen in the large number of patents filed by medical companies and trade flow data as well as employment statistics. The Digital Health-oriented transformation of MedTech is not aimed to replace doctors and medical staff with robots but to use tech advances to enhance their productiveness, streamline processes and improve the quality of services, in order to deliver better outcomes for patients, and potentially reduce overall costs. Therefore, the further development of Digital Health solutions is inextricably linked with MedTech technologies. HVL believes that Europe has a high potential to become the most desirable region for launching new MedTech products, and the Reactor programme plays a crucial part in driving forward key healthcare startups and thus the industry.