Bayer welcomes four healthcare technology start-up to its facilities under the ‘Grants4Apps’ Barcelona program

Of the more than 40 proposals received, Bayer has selected four start-ups to participate in its Grants4Apps Coworking program. This initiative supports entrepreneurship and technological innovation in the field of digital health and is being carried out in Barcelona for the first time this year after previous editions held in Berlin.

Dycare, Hearttrack, Mint Labs (all from Barcelona) and QUBIOtech (from A Coruña) have met the selection criteria based on their project’s innovation, impact on health and phase of development, and will soon begin their six-month stay at the German pharmaceutical company’s offices in Sant Joan Despí. There they will receive support from various experts who will help them develop their business models.

The four start-ups chosen work in cardiology, neurology and diagnostic imaging. Dycare has developed a portable device to monitor and assess the functional capacity of the skeletal muscle system. This technology is geared towards healthcare professionals that specialize in rehabilitation, rheumatology, traumatology and physiotherapy. Using sensors, the device can control a patient’s movements in real time and send the results to be analyzed.

Hearttrack, as its name indicates, is a cardiovascular monitoring system that aims to prevent heart disease. They have created a device with body sensors connected to the Internet so a mobile app can process vital signs from the heart and detect any anomalies. If anomalies are detected an alarm sounds and the app sends a warning to the patient’s cardiologist to be diagnosed. The device also sends the geographic coordinates of the mobile it is connected to.

Mint Labs was created in Barcelona by neuroimaging experts. It is a platform working on early diagnosis and treatment of brain conditions using advanced magnetic resonance technology to see inside the brain. The MRI images are sent directly to the Mint Labs servers, which process and analyze them. The system created by this start-up allows many different images to be processed together to create detailed 3D brain maps. This tool can help improve our understanding of brain conditions and how this organ responds to medical treatment.

QUBIOtech is also working in diagnostic imaging of the brain and has developed a product, IQ-Brain, that automatizes and improves diagnosis of neurological diseases using specific software. The team, made up of physicists, biologists and computer engineers, has created an algorithm that, on one hand, creates a morphological, functional map of the patient and, on the other, automatically analyzes several indicators to decide how to best treat the patient.

Related news:

• Bayer brings Grants4Apps initiative for innovative digital-health start-ups to Barcelona (30.09.2015)