We have been asking our insightful community of supporters, mentors, coaches and partners what they think of when it comes to ‘Into The Future’? – For their thoughts on what innovation may happen in the near future, gaps that need solving in healthcare, what they can see in their crystal ball and more. We are thrilled to share their sharp, knowing and animating answers in part 2 of this series.
(Read part 1 here)

We are always fascinated by how our startups can find solutions to complex healthcare problems. At our INTO THE FUTURE Demo Day on 31st August 2021 the startups will present their businesses and explain how they solve issues for now and for the future. But we are equally as fascinating by what our community think of when it comes to the topic of ‘Into The Future’. Here are some of their answers…

Aline Noizet, Founder, Digital Health Connector

What do you think will be the biggest change in healthcare in the next 5 years?

Decentralized care! The care is going where the patient is, instead of the patient going to the primary care center or hospital. People are being more empowered and will be able to consume healthcare from wherever they want 24/7.

What kind of innovation do you want to see happen in the future of healthcare?

Monitoring innovation that will enable each of us to track our health continuously and take action early if needed. Those innovations should empower us and treat us as persons, so we understand clearly what is happening and the course of action to take, from prevention to cure. Personalized lifestyle recommendations based on our DNA and microbiome profile for us to be at our full potential.

Where are the gaps right now in healthcare that need solving first?

Regulation. Have a clear regulatory framework, coordinated and interoperable between countries.
Data sharing. Being able to access and process data in order to advance drug development, improve treatments.
Involve patients and healthcare professionals more in the development of technological solutions

What can you see in your crystal ball? What does Into The Future of healthcare mean for you?

Empowered patients! Patients as CEO of their own health, participating fully in the decisions made about their health and supported by the right tools and care team (human part is key!). Personalized treatment made for me!

Michael Hübner, Projektmanager, Sana Digital

What do you think will be the biggest change in healthcare in the next 5 years?

In my opinion there will be several big trends that will change healthcare as we know it in the next 5 years, such as personalized medicine through gene sequencing, connected devices (iot) and telemedicine, move to cloud, establishment of platforms, data and analytics for evidence based medicine, transformation from inpatient towards more outpatient care, rise of value-based healthcare, etc. Choosing one is difficult. – For the next 5 years I would assume that the establishment of an international market leading healthcare platform combining a lot of the earlier named topics for customers/patients will have the largest impact changing the delivery of healthcare throughout the continuum of care as we know it.

What kind of innovation do you want to see happen in the future of healthcare?

More value-based patient centric and evidence based healthcare replacing old procedures instead of adding on and thereby making healthcare not just more effective but also more efficient and economically sustainable.

Where are the gaps right now in healthcare that need solving first?

Education and primary prevention can have a large impact on population health and thereby lower healthcare spendings as well as improving public health and the quality of life.

If you could drop everything right now and create any related product or service – what would it be?

I would probably aim to team up with big healthcare payer and provider to create a digital platform integrating the concept of HMO and ACO to provide state of the art highly digitized affordable healthcare services to selected customer

What can you see in your crystal ball? What does Into The Future of healthcare mean for you?

I will improve healthcare on a systematic level as part of the digital strategy department of one Germanys largest integrated healthcare provider.

Thank you to our community for sharing their insights. Find out more about our upcoming Demo Day – INTO THE FUTURE – on 31 August 2021.

What does our insightful community of supporters, mentors, coaches and partners think of when it comes to ‘Into The Future’? We asked a handful for their thoughts on what innovation may happen in the near future, gaps that need solving in healthcare, what they can see in their crystal ball and more. We are thrilled to share their sharp, knowing and animating answers. 

We are always fascinated by how our startups can find solutions to complex healthcare problems. At our INTO THE FUTURE Demo Day on 31st August 2021 the startups will present their businesses and explain how they solve issues for now and for the future.  But we are equally as fascinating by what our community think of when it comes to the topic of ‘Into The Future’. Here are some of their answers…

Dr. Hardy Kietzmann, Consultant in the area of digital therapeutics, focus Germany: DiGA

What do you think will be the biggest change in healthcare in the next 5 years?

Significant steps towards precision medicine (personalized diagnostics before selecting the drug).

What kind of innovation do you want to see happen in the future of healthcare?

Digital health passport or however you want to call it, … starting with (e.g.) german ePA and then enlargement on fields and features (much quicker than currently promised) and finally genetics to be included.

Where are the gaps right now in healthcare that need solving first?

Speed on ePA implementation and installment associated international standards including MIOs (again: toooooo late timeline for MIOs).

If you could drop everything right now and create any related product or service – what would it be?

I am on it (just joined a small StartUp). 8-))

What can you see in your crystal ball? What does Into The Future of healthcare mean for you?

As a patient: application of precision medicine
As an investor: be prepared for tools exchanging data with the “digital health passport”

Kristin Memm, German Attorney at Law, Kanzlei KM

What do you think will be the biggest change in healthcare in the next 5 years?

The centralisation of data. Artificial intelligence will collect such data, evaluate it and analyse it in a way that opens up new horizons for diagnostics, diagnosis, medical risk assessment and treatment decisions. The biggest challenge emerging from this will be to clarify the legal responsibilities.

How can a professional law still regulate and supervise if it is limited to one federal state but medicine is practised across borders? How can a physician be hold responsible for an AI making the right assessment of a treatment decision if the physician does not know the database and algorithms behind the AI? On the other hand, the AI is not a legal entity in its own right.

Our legal system faces a major challenge here. So far, we have set and changed the law in order to react to undesirable changes in our social community. Laws are abstractly general and are interpreted by the jurisdiction in individual cases. This results in the law by which we judge actions as right or wrong. The speed at which digitalisation is advancing is challenging our legal system in that law and jurisprudence are too slow to react to significant changes. Laws that only react to changes regulate a state of affairs that is often already in the past when they are enacted. The judgement of a supreme court is long outdated by the time it is pronounced. Our legal system is too slow and too limited to keep pace with technological development. This might cause an even bigger change in healthcare than the technical development. When technical evolution overtakes legal evolution, everything possible is also feasible, regardless of liability, responsibility and justice.

We need to rethink and make laws for the future. It will be crucial that we do not overstate the risks we see today, but also do not understate the risks that lie far in the future.

What kind of innovation do you want to see happen in the future of healthcare?

A patient centred healthcare, that focusses on prevention and the patients needs more than on treating diseases. The medical reimbursement system has become unbalanced in recent years. When financial incentives are set in such a way that it is not profitable to keep a healthy patient healthy, it becomes lucrative in an economically managed system to make patients sicker than they are. I hope, that the digital innovations, that mostly focus on prevention of chronicle diseases and serious health damages, change this approach and lead to a more individual, symptom controlled and health orientated wholistic healthcare.

Where are the gaps right now in healthcare that need solving first?

The medical reimbursement system needs to be changed fundamentally. Hospitals should not be allowed to be governed by stock exchange listed companies. The role of the physician as someone who shall drive healthcare innovation but must not be guided by economic interests must be reconsidered. In general we have to evaluate, who are our future healthcare providers, what drives them and how they are regulated. Medical self-governing bodies need to rethink their raison d’être. We all together should define the vision of our future healthcare and redefine our goals and mission for each healthcare body, each healthcare provider and each healthcare consumer.

If you could drop everything right now and create any related product or service – what would it be?

If I would drop everything for creating a healthcare related service it would be a patient centred App in non-hospital palliative care. With a focus on the therapeutic goal set together with the patient I would design a system that connects all doctors and nurses involved in the treatment, the patient and his or her caring relatives on the basis of a data-secure messenger service, provides access to the patient’s medical records and precautionary documents (such as the power of attorney for health care or advance directives) and that offers the option of requesting a multidisciplinary ethics vote in difficult decision-making situations.

What can you see in your crystal ball? What does Into The Future of healthcare mean for you?

This crystal ball is still very unclear and fuzzy. The future of healthcare depends on our ability to define a shared vision, critically review our existing systems and make the necessary changes, as well as our ability to abandon our retrospective assessment of current risks and exchange it for an objective prospective assessment of future challenges and regulatory requirements. If we can do this, the invention of digital health products has the potential to lead us to an ideal future of healthcare, where artificial intelligence can help provide the best valued and most individualised care, but where the patient, his or her health and a trusted doctor-patient relationship are at the heart of healthcare.

Jeremy Dähn, Head of Digitization and Innovation, Johanniter

What do you think will be the biggest change in healthcare in the next 5 years?

Patients and healthy people out there will monitor their vital signs continuously, which will be analyzed in newly established data centers in hospitals. Hospitals can immediately react to incidents, relapses or even preventive care for healthy customers. Therefore the cross-sectoral borders will merge.

What kind of innovation do you want to see happen in the future of healthcare?

I really would like to see the Tricorder of Star Trek. Probably it will rather be in the watch, although the Tricorder does much more, which a watch can do in the near future. 🙂

Where are the gaps right now in healthcare that need solving first?

In Germany, it is still the regulatory part. The cross-sectoral borders are cumbersome for innovation along the patient journey.

If you could drop everything right now and create any related product or service – what would it be?

The Tricorder!

What can you see in your crystal ball? What does Into The Future of healthcare mean for you?

Healthcare will focus on three areas. Taking care of the healthy ones to stay healthy, curing people with one-time incidents like accidents and helping patients with chronic diseases to cope with their illness, fostering adherence, and support behavioral change.

Thank you to our community for sharing their insights. Find out more about our upcoming Demo Day – INTO THE FUTURE – on 31 August 2021.

“Well what can I say? It was hard work writing the application, but we had great preparation from Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin and then we won!”

Yair Kira, Co-Founder of YoniCore is modest when it comes to the amazing news that their startup YoniCore has won the EXIST Business Startup Grant. Supported by the European Union and German government, the grant is focused on start-up teams with innovative business ideas. Yair and his team signed the contracts and moved onto their next exciting step of their entrepreneurial journey. As is the life of a young startup in healthcare, it’s about building the business onwards. 

The Vision Health Pioneers Incubator alumni were awarded the grant, having pre-selected their mentor – Professor Ivo Boblan from the Compliant Robotics Lab in Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin (formerly Technische Fachhochschule Berlin). 

“We needed to have a research partner and after a few universities turned us down, we were introduced to Bastian Behrmann from Beuth University. We were invited to pitch in front of the Beuth Startup Hub team. They weren’t easy on us, but we were well prepared and each Co-Founder could answer about their field of responsibility. For example I remember how nice it felt when Linda Wonneberger, Co-Founder, could explain better than me about the market. While Hugo Silva, CTO, talked in detail about the technology and presented the prototype we built. It felt good to see how we compliment each other as a team and I guess this is part of how we won them as partners. They instructed us through the process and we wrote the application, which took some time because it needed to be in proper german!” Yair jokes.

YoniCore’s Mission

Part of the necessary components for securing the grant is being an innovative technology or knowledge based project with significant unique features and good commercial prospects of success. YoniCore with its mission to build an excellent product that will improve the lives of millions of women around the world certainly ticks this box. 

It however wasn’t all plain sailing. As Yair explains, “Due to the program structure, not all three Co-Founders could apply to the program. Therefore we decided to search for new team members for this application. This naturally took a little time but now we are happy that we could expand our product development team due to it.”

It was a three month wait and then Yair and his team received the news that they had been accepted. “It was a big milestone for us to reach. We were really happy.” The grant is for one year and supports up to three scholars per team. Yair explains that there is an allocation of the public money funds towards key areas. “It will allow us to develop the product further and gain more validations as preparation for the next round of investors talks and fundraising.” 

YoniCore’s Time With Vision Health Pioneers Incubator

Yair shares how their time, when they were named hers, in the Vision Health Pioneers Incubator helped prepare them for their overall journey. “It was almost a learning programme – we participated in many workshops. We were able to figure out all the health care issues we needed to deal with and came away from it with the ability to form our idea into a business model and plan.”

The team took part in the inaugural Vision Health Pioneers Incubator Demo Day.

“At our Demo Day in November 2020 it was another great milestone to reach. We were able to recap all the hard work we did and find the right way to communicate it. Our pitch was filmed and we still use that video today. It shows us and those in our network where we have been and where we are today.”

Yair also shares how the knowledge learnt through the Vision Health Pioneers Incubator has been of great support, even when this meant revisiting his notes. “We learnt how the German healthcare system worked and how to bring a medical product to market. At the time some parts felt theoretical and overwhelming. But now I can go back to my original notes and put those ideas into practice or re-tune something. After more than a year working on the project, we are gaining more hands-on experience and so we can match this with the theory. Slowly we are becoming experts in our field.”

Since Incubation with Vision Health Pioneers

The time after the incubator with Vision Health Pioneers is key for all the startups. Yair recalls the conversations with investors that took place. “We had many talks and received feedback that the project and the team looked great, but that it was a little too early for them to invest. Now when we go into investor talks, we know what they need to know and would like to see.” YoniCore have set themselves a goal to be ready for talks once more by the end of 2021. “We are using the time to gather more medical evidence and how the treatment we offer from a medical point of view is needed.” Yair is confident there is a high demand of women who need and would purchase their product. Now they are making sure they have the evidence for investor conversations. 

Between the end of the incubator and the start of this grant, Yair and co have been taking part in other programs. “Tech4Ever, the mentoring programme, is specifically focused on women’s health and femtech so ideal for us. Another is Life Science Track which has been useful to analyze the user journey and requirements for quality management and the Medical Device Regulation (MDR).” Yair says. 

The team is now hard at work with developing their product further. “The opportunity we have with the University and the lab is to develop the product further. The difference for the other programs is that with the EXIST Business Startup Grant we have a budget for materials and services. This is  important when you develop a hardware solution. Now we have the possibility to get our product to work as we imagine it. After this we could test it and we’ll know what our minimum viable product (MVP) looks like. Then we can go through the CE certification and compliance  to the MDR.” 

The YoniCore Product 

The unique aspect of YoniCore’s smart connected medical device is how it treats pelvic floor dysfunctions. The individualized treatment is the only treatment that offers end-to-end relief with a long-term training programme within their app. Other products in the market provide either physical support and immediate treatment of symptoms, or pelvic floor training. YoniCore has a holistic approach that takes care of these women from all aspects and allow them to get more control with less visits to the doctor. Their focus is not just on the plain medical aspects but on the whole experience and taking into consideration the emotions and busy life of the women they are approaching. 

We are delighted to announce that the Vision Health Pioneers Incubator will run for another two years! 36 entrepreneurs in 15 teams will once again receive support from our healthcare Startup incubator based in Berlin.

Check out these exciting new developments:

• FUNDING: We will again invest more than 1.5 mio Euro public funding. This support originates from a special European Union’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
• INVESTMENT: We will be able to grant up to 80,000 Euro per team equity-free funding (up to 4 team members).
• ACCESS: To house our cohorts we just signed up for a new cribb: starting in 2022 we will partner with Unicorn Coworking and will offer our startups a modern space located in central Berlin.
• TRAININGS: Stay tuned for even more coaching and mentoring from the best of the best in healthcare and beyond.
• TIMELINE: Join us for an extended 10-month program
• NETWORK: Connect with our network of 150+ experts via events and our growing Slack community

Note down the starting dates for 2022-2023:

Cohort #3 – Begin January 2022. Apply between 15.10.21 and 15.11.21.
Cohort #4 – Begin April 2022. Apply between 15.10.21 and 15.01.22.
Cohort #5 – Begin in July 2022. Apply between 15.10.21 and 15.04.22.

The challenge hasn’t changed but the paths of successful support are growing stronger by the day. Within the incubator our startups will learn how the German healthcare market works and how they can ensure that by the end of the ten month period of incubation, they are ready for their next steps. Now with two years of successful healthcare Startup incubation and an array of fantastic innovation solutions working their way into the healthcare ecosystem, or about to be presented to the world, Vision Health Pioneers Incubator is poised to support many more entrepreneurs achieve their dreams.

Keep a close eye across our social media channels and sign up for the newsletter to to be amongst the first to get notified once our application phase starts.

P.S.

Our next Demo Day, INTO THE FUTURE, takes place on 31st August 2021! Get a glimpse of the healthcare startups currently in the program and meet the Vision Health Pioneers Incubator Alumni.

Join us from 15:00 until 17:00 for a fascinating and insightful look at how the startups have grown and developed. Please register for your ticket on Eventbrite and for the latest updates, click ‘Attend event’ on our dedicated LinkedIn page. 

We look forward to welcoming you!