Five healthtech start-ups have officially become the first cohort of the Edison Accelerator in EMEA – a healthcare start-up and scale-up acceleration programme designed by GE Healthcare in partnership with innovation organisation Wayra UK.
The start-ups all focus on applying AI to augment medical imaging, improve oncology care and improve the patient experience. Estimates suggest that over 400,000 European lives could be saved annually through the application of AI in healthcare, and could free up 1.8 billion hours of clinicians’ time to focus on what matters most; the patient.
The selected start-ups were chosen as they demonstrated innovative and scalable solutions to pressing problems in the healthcare sector such as scarcity of diagnostic resources, bottlenecks in care pathways and limitations in patient input.
Legit Health (Bilbao, Spain): Legit Health is a clinical data and communication tool that helps next-generation dermatologists improve diagnosis, score severity and monitor the evolution of wounds, and chronic and malignant skin lesions. This AI-powered technology helps clinicians & patients alike to improve diagnosis.
Spryt (London, UK): SPRYT is a smart scheduling solution that improves uptake/coverage rates for screening services as well as reducing the appointment no-show problem. No show rates are a significant problem in diagnostic cancer services.
Radiobotics (Copenhagen, Denmark): Radiobotics are automating measurements and detections in x-rays to streamline the reading of features in musculoskeletal x-rays.
Lucida Medical (Cambridge, UK): Lucida uses Machine Learning and radiogenomics to help identify cancer from MRI and clinical data. Lucinda Medical aims to make cancer screening accurate, accessible, cost-effective and quick.
Vinehealth (London, UK): Vinehealth combines behavioural science and AI to provide highly personalised patient support that improves the quality of life and survival of cancer patients.
Bruno Moraes, Country Manager, Wayra UK says: “We are proud to welcome some magnificent scale-ups in EMEA for our first cohort of the Edison Accelerator in the region. The programme gives our companies unique access to work with leading healthcare corporations to validate their solutions, and then to exploit the business development opportunities that can follow. There is no better partner than GE Healthcare to make this happen. I am certain that the Edison Accelerator will become a major player in the HealthTech space in Europe and beyond, and we at Wayra are excited to help make this happen.”
Jan Beger, Senior Director of Digital Ecosystem, GE Healthcare says: “The future of innovation will be about working across silos and collaborating across the healthcare ecosystem, including start-ups, research centres, hospitals, clinicians and patients. The Edison Accelerator is bringing together those stakeholders under a single, connected ecosystem to generate a real impact in helping to improve the bottom line and in providing patient care.”
Over the next six months, the Edison Accelerator will provide its cohort of five start-ups with the knowledge and skills to help them further scale their business and co-develop solutions with GE and the other leading healthcare institutions participating in the programme. Each start-up will be working with a team at GE Healthcare and one of the healthcare partner institutions – Alliance Medical, Ribera Salud, the east midlands imaging network (EMRAD) and Manchester University. Intel has also joined the Edison accelerator as a Technology partner. The accelerator will give the start-ups access to GE Healthcare’s extensive global network including thousands of sales professionals and distribution partners in 160 countries and will culminate in a Demo Day in November.
About GE Healthcare:
GE Healthcare is the $18 billion healthcare business of GE. As a leading global medical technology and digital solutions innovator, GE Healthcare enables clinicians to make faster, more informed decisions through intelligent devices, data analytics, applications and services, supported by its Edison intelligence platform. With over 100 years of healthcare industry experience and around 50,000 employees globally, the company operates at the center of an ecosystem working toward precision health, digitizing healthcare, helping drive productivity and improve outcomes for patients, providers, health systems and researchers around the world.
About Wayra:
Wayra connects Telefónica and corporate partners to technological disruptors around the world. Wayra is present in 7 hubs with activity in 10 countries in Europe and Latin America, with a clear objective: help start-ups to scale. Wayra offers a unique and smooth interface between entrepreneurs and our network of corporates, governments and other partners, adding value to the ecosystems where we are present.
As a pioneer in corporate innovation, we understand that all companies face two choices: disrupt or be disrupted. We believe that corporates can reinvent themselves by standing shoulder to shoulder with entrepreneurs worldwide and scale them to fulfil their digital transformation. We are leaders in bringing corporations and start-ups together to generate joint business opportunities.