A total of nine companies have been accepted into Bayer’s Digital Health Partnership Program, as annouced on the EU Startups website recently.

In 2021, the pharmaceutical company was specifically looking for young companies with expertise in the focus areas of mental health, cardiometabolic and reneal diseases, radiology and women’s health across Europe.

WHAT’S THE IMPACT

The finalists were selected from over one hundred applications in more than 40 countries.

As Bayer announced, four new startups have now entered the Digital Health Partnership Program via Bayer’s G4A Growth Track: this investment opportunity is targeted at early-stage startups in medical fields that are currently in high demand.

According to the EU Startups website, the funded startups are:

• Cardiokol, a digital telehealth solution based on voice recognition for monitoring and screening heart rhythm disorders for mass at-risk populations, namely seniors.
• Acorai, a non-invasive monitoring application for intracardiac pressure, aimed at patients with heart failure.
• Pollie, a personalised program for menstruating women to streamline chronic conditions from the polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).
• RCubeHealth, developer of RESONY, a mobile app for mental health, designed to better manage stress and build up resilience.

Each of these startups receives €100,000 for market uptake along with Bayer’s mentoring and external industry coaching for market entry, finance, GDPR and HIPAA compliance.

Furthermore, in Bayer’s G4A Advanced Track – a funding programme for more experienced, mid-stage companies in the field of digital health – five new companies have been selected for commercial partnerships:

• Liva Healthcare, developer of a digital behaviour change program including tailored health plans for nutrition, weight loss, coaching and group interventions for at-risk patients with and without chronic conditions.
• Cordio Medical, a digital solution to monitor various health conditions in real-time through voice samples – aimed at early disease detection.
• Nines, a pioneer for innovation in radiology.
• Woebot Health, developer of a ‘digital therapist’, a relational agent for mental health that bonds with patients.
• Zed Technologies, provider of an instant access solution for sharing X-rays and scans via a secure medical image sharing platform.

THE LARGER TREND

With the investments into the aforementioned companies, the pharma giant seeks to accelerate R&D of products and solutions within digital health remits.

A year ago, in November 2020, the G4A Digital Health Partnership Program already focused on the expansion of digital partnerships – at that time in the area of cardiometabolic care, oncology and women’s health.

In Spring 2019, the German life science company consolidated all of its funding programmes into one application slot for both, early- and mid-stage startups as well as mature enterprises in the digital health sector.

Next year’s top priorities for investment will be mental health, women’s health, oncology and cardiometabolic diseases. For the first time, the application process in 2022 will be designed as an open cycle, so that companies with promising ideas can apply throughout the year – starting from January 2022.

Bayer’s G4A program has scaled and supported over 150 European healthcare technology companies through commercial partnerships, collaborations and investments so far.