4 million investment for innovations addressing women’s health and digital therapeutics – Health Europa

EIT Health has announced that its 2020 Wild Card is now open for applications for teams and individuals, inviting Europes most-promising health innovators to submit stand-out proposals in the areas of womens health and digital therapeutics.

Applications for the Wild Card programme are open until 9 February 2020.

One of the most comprehensive programmes in the European healthcare innovation landscape, Wild Card will first create and then invest up to 2 million into two ventures that push the boundaries in the challenge areas.

Now in its third year and with four start-ups already launched, the Wild Card programme seeks to support the most promising teams and turn their ideas into businesses.

Each year the Wild Card programme carefully selects two challenges which represent a pressing health issue for European citizens. For 2020 the first challenge set to Europes health innovation community is womens health. Innovators are urged to devise cost-effective, technology-driven solutions to provide specialised care for women.

The second challenge is digital therapeutics, which asks innovations to harness the power of digital solutions to prevent, manage and treat medical conditions or disease.

Commenting on the womens health challenge, Jorge Fernndez Garca, EIT Health Director of Innovation explains: Addressing womens healthcare is vital. A historical female under-representation in research has led to womens health issues being overlooked or under served.

In Europe, its estimated that women spend almost 12 years of their life in ill health, they are more likely to develop adverse reactions to medication, and cardiovascular disease, traditionally considered as a threat to men, is the greatest mortality risk for women in Europe alongside cancer.

Womens health is rich territory for Europes health innovators, we look forward to supporting breakthroughs that can make a real impact here.

Commenting on the digital therapeutics challenge, Garca, comments: Were looking for innovators who can create digital therapeutic solutions that enhance the delivery and quality of care. Although its a relatively new field, its an area that holds great promise to deliver breakthroughs in therapy areas where medicine has so far struggled, as well as tackling the challenge of shifting healthcare towards a more preventative rather than reactive approach.

Were looking for innovation that can show a distinct and measurable benefit for patients and healthcare systems.

The most promising applicants will attend a hackathon to build or complement their team and write their business plan. Up to six teams will then be selected to progress to a 10-week Business Model Validation phase.

Since the launch of Wild Card in 2018, EIT Health has invested 8 million in four ventures who put forward game-changing proposals to tackle some of Europes most significant health challenges.

Entries for the 2020 Wild Card close on 9th February 2020, further information about the programme, the challenges and how to apply can be found at https://wildcard.eithealth.eu/.

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4 million investment for innovations addressing women's health and digital therapeutics - Health Europa