Follow the Nijmegen pathway to entrepreneurship in Health and High Tech!

The Nijmegen area is the hotspot of innovation in Health and High Tech. Entrepreneurs and researchers are developing their innovation and growing their business, supported by a strong ecosystem. Over the past four years, this already led to many great results. For the next years we want to build upon this foundation to further accelerate ofinnovative entrepreneurship for the region to grow the regional economy and create a societal impact.

Together with our partners and, most importantly, the entrepreneurs in our network. Follow this pathway and discover the journey of entrepreneurs through our ecosystem. Explore how input becomes output, and the way we eventually reached our most important objective: 570 new jobs in Health and High Tech. Let’s continue this journey together!

Download the Nijmegen pathway as pdf file

AI for Life: Computational pathology

The subject of this broadcast is computational pathology. Artificial Intelligence to support the radiologist has of course been around for a long time and is starting to be introduced more and more into daily operational processes. Think of software for scanning and analysing lung scans to detect cancer. But the use of AI in pathology has some additional challenges. For instance, pathologists are not always used to a digital workflow yet, and they use a microscope more often than smart software. In addition, the costs of implementing a digital workflow are high. Yet AI offers great opportunities to improve the quality of tissue research and make the process more efficient. The speakers in this podcast aim to make great strides in implementing and supporting the digital workflow for pathologists in the coming years.

We do so with:

– Katrien Grundberg, head pathology department Radboudumc;
– Jeroen van der Laak, researcher computational pathology at Radboudumc
– and Patrick de Boer, co-founder of patholyt, a start-up based on knowledge developed at Radboudumc.

Listen the podcast.

Saving lives with a pump in the heart

Start-up CardiacBooster is developing a small but powerful pump that can pump blood through the groin of a patient’s heart. The device helps cardiologists in the critical phase shortly after a heart attack. A heart attack damages the heart muscle. In some patients (about 5 percent) this results in less blood being pumped around the body. The result is that organs receive too little blood. This can cause them to function less well. Sometimes, this can even be so bad the patient dies as a result.

Kind of balloon
“Our device works like a balloon that can suck in and push out blood,” says Daniël van Dort, inventor of the technology and Chief Science Officer and co-founder of CardiacBooster, a spin-off of the Radboudumc in Nijmegen. “You improve the strength of the heart with this pump and can pump more blood around.” People with a severe infarction for example, relatively often suffer kidney damage, requiring dialysis. By using the device, this kidney damage can be limited. This significantly improves the quality of life of these patients.

Simple insertion
There are other devices that can pump the patient’s blood. But they are relatively large for the amount of blood they can pump. “Unique to our device is that it is easily inserted into patients’ hearts via the groin,” says Van Dort.
The pump can be used there immediately. It can also be used preventively in patients who have a poor heart function and who have to undergo surgery. Van Dort: “You can prevent someone from going off the deep end and suffering damage to their organs because not enough blood is pumped around during the operation.”

Idea book
As a medical student, Van Dort was already fascinated by the workings of the heart. “In the lecture hall, I kept a notebook of ideas in which I wrote down medical problems that I wanted to solve. For example, during my studies I learned that people with a heart attack are given medication to limit the consequences. I found that fascinating: you are trying to solve a mechanical problem, a heart that is not working properly, with a lubricant. Couldn’t you make the heart work better? After my studies, I started to work on this. It literally happened at the kitchen table. So now, five prototypes later, we have a device that can tackle the mechanical problem much better. In addition to his work for CardiacBooster, Van Dort works as a researcher at the Department of Cardiac Surgery of the Radboudumc.

Best Startup
CardiacBooster was founded in 2018. Florian Ludwig from Thuja Capital hooked up as CEO. To develop the product, CardiacBooster received a financial injection from Thuja, the Radboudumc and the RedMedTech Discovery Fund in recent years. This is a fund for innovative start-ups in Life Sciences & Health in Gelderland. In 2019, CardiacBooster was named one of the ten best scientific start-ups in the Netherlands. The company is based at the Novio Tech Campus in Nijmegen.

First study in humans
At the moment, the pump is still being studied in laboratory animals. If all goes well, the first study in humans will take place next year. There are already ten people working at CardiacBooster and the company is looking for further funding. “I know a lot about how the heart works and how to make the blood pump around better. But if you really want to understand how it works, it takes a lot of time and money to research.” By 2023, CardiacBooster hopes to bring this innovation to the market, once approved.

The copywright of this article lies with Innoavtions Origin.

Slides and recording Briskr ‘Trends & developments in the medical sector in China’

We organized the Briskr workshop’ Trends & developments in the medical sector in China: business opportunities for the Netherlands on May 31. This session interactively addressed the Chinese demand for Dutch products and technology and highlighted steps Dutch companies can take in order to do business with China.

Judith van de Bovenkamp, OostNL, kicked off this meeting on the trends and developments in the medical sector in China. She explained how Go4export can support you in doing business abroad. For example export vouchers are available for entrepreneurs, you can participate in a trade mission or visit an international fair. Judiths tip: Learn from the experiences of other entrepreneurs and make use of the international network. this way, you can prepare yourself well in doing business with China.

The second speaker was Nico Schiettekatte, from the Dutch Embassy. He informed us that the ministry can support entrepreneurs who want to do business with China in sectors such as pharma, medical devices & health. And he gave an overview of facts and figures in medical markets. The ministry can help you in finding reliable contacts, partners and events (from contact to contract!). There are several offices of the Dutch government in China to help you on the spot.

In the final part, Reinout van Malenstein, HFG IP Firm Shanghai explained us that it is necessary to register your IP. There are some important things you have to know to protect your trademark in China. There are differences between trademarks and patents in Europa and in China. You need to register it also in China, otherwise you do not have any protection. Even if you do not (yet) have any trade in China, you have to register in China. As European rights will not work in China.

We closed this workshop with a Q&A and online networking. This is the first in a series of workshops on doing business (far) abroad. More countries/dates will be communicated shortly.

Presentation Judith van de Bovenkamp, Project Manager International, Oost NL

Presentation Nico Schiettekatte, attaché Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport

The recording will follow soon.

Recording Briskr new MDR for medical devices

The MDR workshop took place yesterday. Anja Wiersma from Mi-ce was the speaker who informed the participants about the impact of the new MDR for medical devices. She led us through the major and relevant changes on regulations for medical devices and IVD Products.

Topics like MDR timelines and Changes to classification were covered. And at the request of the attendees Anja got into depth on the following three topics: Clinical evaluation process: (What is enough data? How to gather the data?), Post Market Surveillance process (including PMS plan, PSURs, PMCF) and Eudamed/UDI.

It was a very diverse group of participants, from app developers to suppliers and manufacturers of medical devices. As all participants have to deal with these changes in their organisation and how they each have to be compliant in their own way with the new MDR regulations. We thank Anja for this very informative session!

If you were unable to attend, you can view the workshop with a great deal of practical information about the new MDR here.

MIT R&D Cooperation Projects

Do you want to set up a research & development project together with 1 or more SMEs? If so, you can apply for a subsidy from 1 June 2021 at 9 am. There is one important change compared to previous years: your plans must fit within one of the following Knowledge and Innovation agendas:

Energy and Sustainability;
Health and Care;
Agriculture, Water and Food;
Safety;
Key Enabling Technologies;
Social Earnings.

Does your plan fit within one of these agendas? Then you can apply for a subsidy for an R&D Collaboration project.

More information by this link (in Dutch).

Recording and presentations of Innoboot2021

The presentations and recordings of the Innoboot2021: Food for Health! are now available. Yesterday the teams from Briskr, Foodvalley NL, HAN & Radboud University organised the annual Innoboot.

‘You are what you eat.’ We know this for a long time but still food intake has received little attention from the perspective of healthcare professionals. In various plenary and sub-sessions, we discussed Food for Health, from how to prepare patients properly for operations, food innovations & round table discussions, to encouraging consumers in supermarkets to eat more healthy food.

Connecting science and business is an important aspect of the Innoboot event. More recordings you can find here, and the presentations are on the website of SMB.

AI for Life: podcast 6: Self-learning algorithms

The 6th episode of the podcast series AI for Life is live, and this time it’s about “self-learning algorithms”.

Many smart algorithms get completely lost when change occurs within the context in which the algorithm has been trained. This often leads to errors that may be logical but come across as very stupid to the unsuspecting user. So the question is: how can we make algorithms more resilient to changes in context? In this episode, we talk about “self-learning algorithms” with experts:

– Marcel van Gerven, Professor of AI at Donders Institute of Radboud University and Radboudumc.

– Elsbeth van Dam, researcher at Noldus Information Technology and PhD candidate at Radboud University.

– And Lucas Noldus, founder of Noldus Information Technologies and currently also a professor at Radboud University.

Listen to the podcast with this link.

Medical-technological innovations accelerated to market by government investment of 8 mln

On March 23, the results of the Thematic Technology Transfer (TTT) call were announced. Radboudumc is involved in both the MedTech and AI call. Radboud University is involved in the call focused on AI. 8 million has been made available for both consortia. In the coming years, this innovative approach focused on knowledge transfer and entrepreneurship will offer many new opportunities in the health and high-tech region of Nijmegen.

Millions for knowledge and investment consortium in the field of Artificial Intelligence

The Radboud University, other Dutch universities and a venture investor have been awarded 8 million euros in funding. This grant will be used to speed up and better target innovation in the field of Artifical Intelligence within society. This is a grant from the Thematic Technology Transfer (TTT) scheme of RVO.

The TTT.AI consortium will focus on generating science based AI startups and providing early-stage funding to these start-ups. The consortium has brought together a number of top researchers, business developers, investors and entrepreneurs in the field of AI. Its primary themes are #healthcare, #security and #industry, but promising initiatives regarding other themes can get support as well. LUMO Labs is the investor responsible for providing early-stage funding.