The MEDICA start-up COMPETITION, the Healthcare Innovation World Cup, the MEDICA START-UP PARK and more than 100 start-ups with pitches in the MEDICA CONNECTED HEALTHCARE FORUM demonstrate that the world’s leading medical trade fair MEDICA in Düsseldorf, Germany, has also established itself as the international platform for start-ups. Currently, preparations for staging this year’s MEDICA as a hybrid event are in a crucial phase (the event will be held from November 15 – 18, 2021) and the in-person event at the Düsseldorf exhibition halls will be combined with many digital programs that can be accessed from anywhere via the MEDICA.de industry portal with a ticket. Due to the pandemic, MEDICA was held as a purely virtual event in 2020 and reached decision makers from 169 nations and from all sectors of the healthcare industry (a total of 45,000 unique users).
As the pandemic has relentlessly revealed deficits in patient care, as well as giving a strong impetus to the digitalization of healthcare processes, participants can once again look forward to the many ideas and developments of the creative start-up scene at MEDICA.
Particularly outstanding solutions will be selected, for example, as part of the 10th MEDICA start-up COMPETITION (on November 16/ hall 12 + online), covering the topics of health apps, diagnostics, artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare and robotics. Conformity with the “Medical Device Directive” is not required.
Good arguments for convincing investors
When the start-up Radiobotics ApS applied to the competition in 2020, it had no such certificate. Despite this, it was one of the winners, and today, its product RBknee is a certified Class I medical device in accordance with the Medical Device Directive 93/42/EEC. “We are one of the few companies to have already achieved this,” says Stine Mølgaard Sørensen, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of the start-up. Radiobotics’ AI-based solution automatically generates findings that are relevant for the radiological diagnosis of osteoarthritis of the knee. These are reproduced as a text report including conclusions and act as important diagnostic support for physicians. Sørensen reports on the positive experiences that the company gained during its participation in the MEDICA start-up COMPETITION 2020: “It’s an excellent opportunity to promote your company and product worldwide.” According to Sørensen, all that every young business needs is a competition like this to prove its quality. Scoring in the competition is also a good argument to convince investors in later rounds of funding.
