Startup 'Health-i' gained exclusive world-wide license
It is a fact! After a negotiation period of 8 months the contract is signed. HEALTH-i B.V. gained the exclusive worldwide license for a cardio-vascular prevention program that combines professional, medical and health assessment with motivational lifestyle advice. It will save thousands of lives and millions of euros in healthcare costs. The program is close to market and HEALTH-i is the only one that may boost it into the world.
HEALTH-i is a Dutch startup which is coached by the Eindhoven Business Development Accelerator, since last year. EIT ICT Labs helps HEALTH-i in getting the business proposition sharper and with up scaling their business. Important accelerators were offered such as pitch training, participation in two Investors’ Dinners and giving them the opportunity to join conferences to meet and match with potential partners. Next to this, HEALTH-i was selected to become a member of the Health and Wellbeing Business community 2014 that enables startups to meet and match with partners in the pan-European EIT ICT Labs network. HEALTH-i was also invited to deliver its business case to the Summer School 2014 where Master School students brought up business solutions for HEALTH-i. Hence, HEALTH-i will showcase a demo of the cardio-vascular prevention program to the public at the ‘Open House’ during the inauguration event of the Eindhoven Co-location Centre, on 11 December next.
Addressing a societal challenge
According to the founders of HEALTH-i, Marïelle Meuffels and Eckhard Schwenner, the technology has initially been developed within a large multinational medical device company. They say: “Imagine the robustness of this technology as it took more than 2 years to mature it in a large enterprise research environment! However, a multinational has to set business priorities and those were not in favor of further development of this platform. But in our vision the platform is too valuable for society to not moving it now and this resulted in the technology transfer to HEALTH-i. The platform is now free to go to market.”
Playing field
80% of early cardiac deaths are preventable by simple lifestyle measures. HEALTH-i believes that prevention is the cure, and a cost effective one too. 20 Bn Euro healthcare costs in cardiology are attributable to unhealthy lifestyle in Europe alone. The medical check-up market is already big, with more than 10 Bn Euro globally. But it is very fragmented and with no direct connection to the many lifestyle programs available and with no structured follow up for the end-customer. HEALTH-i addresses the needs of the end customer. The startup provides an integrated prevention solution powered by smart and user friendly software platform. It combines effective and efficient health assessment together with a motivational lifestyle advice.
End customers value the easily understandable health assessment and the practical and motivational advice. Next to this the benefits for the Center Managers are: higher throughput at lower costs and improved customer retention resulting in substantially higher profitability. Cardiologists stay automatically up to date with medical guidelines and benefit from data integration for a hassle free reporting.
Who is HEALTH-i
HEALTH-i ‘s leadership team consists of the founders Mariëlle Meuffels and Eckhard Schwenner. They are both highly competent healthcare industry professionals with corporate and start-up experience. “We are convinced that we provide a profitable solution for diagnostic check up centers and an attractive offer to their end-customers saving thousands of lives and millions of Euros in healthcare costs”, they both conclude.
Future plans
Of course Eckhard and Mariëlle are thinking of the next steps: “The focus is now on further developing the demonstrator into an advanced prototype and into a marketable product. In parallel we restart the discussions with a large investor and potential customers who are very interested in our proposition. However, the negotiation got bogged down by the fact that we first had to legalise the license agreement. That hurdle has been taken by signing the contract. The technology is now totally ours and free to get exploited for the market.“
Relation to EIT ICT Labs
HEALTH-i is member of the Health and Wellbeing community 2014 and is expanding its European network accordingly. The founders of HEALTH-i have coaching of the Eindhoven Business Accelerator and they hope that EIT ICT Labs can help them in upscaling their business.
Contact: Mariëlle Meuffels
