At the Expo Day last week, eight startups from three continents presented the results of their collaboration with Roche and Sanofi in Batch 4 of the Startup CreasphereDue to the current situation, Expo Day was held virtually for the first time. More than 350 participants followed the event and the pitches of the digital health startups live. Christoph Franz, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Roche, opened the virtual Expo Day and spoke about the importance of innovation at Roche and the role Startup Creasphere plays in this. He particularly highlighted the opportunities offered by open innovation and mutual learning between large corporations and startups.
Jochen Hurlebaus, Head of Digital Health Innovation CPS at Roche Diagnostics and initiator of the Startup Creasphere, then spoke about the international expansion of the program, which was launched in Munich in 2018: The first batches have already started this year in Singapore and Silicon Valley.
Eight startups from Batch 4
Afterwards, the focus shifted entirely to the five startups that had worked with Roche teams on pilot projects over the past four months – for the first time, purely virtually – and presented their results. Among them were:
- Eko.ai: The Singapore-based startup has developed software that uses machine learning to automatically read echocardiograms, helping to detect cardiovascular diseases earlier.
- Jana Care: The founding team, who met while studying at MIT (Boston), has developed a platform for the diagnosis and disease management of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart failure.
- Sorcerer: The team from Washington DC has developed an AI platform based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) that bundles medical knowledge and supports doctors in decision-making.
- Statice: The Berlin-based startup is dedicated to the topic of optimal data utilization while adhering to the highest data protection standards. Using machine learning, the software developed by Statice generates synthetic data that is completely anonymized yet meaningful.
- Graphics: The London-based founding team has developed an open source database solution that enables employees, for example in research, to integrate data from different sources and visualize dependencies.
After a short break and an introduction by the second founding partner of Startup Creasphere, Sanofi, three startups presented the results of their collaboration with Sanofi Consumer Health in the current batch:
- Wellteq: The Singapore-based startup aims to motivate employees to adopt a healthier work and lifestyle with an AI-based corporate wellness platform.
- Music Care: The founding team with French roots has developed an AI-based music program that can complement or partially replace the use of medication in anxiety and pain therapy.
- Healint: With Migraine Buddy, the Singapore-based startup has launched the world's most used app for people with migraines.
Two new partners on board
At the Expo Day, it was also announced that the work of Startup Creasphere will be supported by two additional partners, Lonza and Microsoft:
Lonza, a company headquartered in Switzerland that develops, produces, and distributes chemical products, supplies companies in the pharmaceutical industry, among others. By participating in the Startup Creasphere accelerator program, the manufacturer aims to complement its internal innovation with external input and solutions from startups.
Microsoft sees its role as an ecosystem partner of Startup Creasphere as supporting startups and companies from the healthcare industry as a technological enabler in their innovation in the field of digital health.
