Phase 1 - The three most innovative business ideas!
54 teams from 15 countries and 3 continents contested in phase 1 of the competition - a strong signal for the innovative and entrepreneurial power in the life sciences! 14 projects belonged to Medical Technology, 22 to Red Biotechnology, 6 to Supply, 4 to Diagnostics, 3 to Food, 2 to White Biotech, 2 to Bioinformatics and 1 to Green Biotech.
38 BOB evaluators from 6 countries performed a total of 216 evaluations providing detailed feedback to the participants.
On May 10th, 2012, the three winning teams were presented to the public and awarded a cash prize of € 1,500 each at a ceremony held in the premises of Austria Wirtschaftsservice.
The winning teams were (in alphabetical order):
Genequine Biotherapeutics; Kilian Guse
SIMCharacters; Jens Schwindt, Christoph Kunzmann, Michael Hoffmann
ViraTherapeutics; Dorothee Von Laer, Lisa Egerer, Sabrina Marozin
Phase 2 - The winners!
In phase 2, the best business plans were selected. In total, 26 teams contested of which 9 belonged to Red Biotech, 7 to Medtech, 3 to Services , 3 to Bioinformatics, 2 to White Biotech, 1 to Diagnostics and 1 to Food.
14 teams came from Austria, 3 from Hungary,2 from India, 1 from the Czech Republic, 1 from Slovenia, 1 from Indonesia, 1 from the USA, 1 from Germany, 1 from Finland and 1 from Iran. (54% Austria, 46% other countries). Of the 14 Austrian teams 9 came from Vienna, 2 from Styria, 1 from Carinthia, 1 from Tyrol and 1 from Salzburg. (64% Vienna, 36% other federal states).
In September 2012, the 10 best teams were preselected. Of those teams, 7 originated from Austria, 1 from Finland, 1 from Hungary and 1 from the Czech Republic.
The 10 best projects were invited to a coaching session on 21-22 September in Vienna, a two day intensive workshop. On October 17-18 an international jury selected the winners who were awarded the prizes on October 18 during the final award ceremony.
1st Prize Winner: ViraTherapeutics
ViraT develops innovative virus-based medicine for the treatment of cancer patients, including those for whom conventional therapy has failed.
2nd Prize Winner: SIMCharacters
The second prize was awarded to the Viennese company SIMCharacters set up by Jens-Christian Schwindt and Michael Hoffmann. The Team breaks new ground in the development of small training simulators and combines know- how in the medical area, lifelike anatomy and high-class animation Technology.
3rd Prize Winner: EveliQure
The Jury gave the thir prize to the team EveliQure. EveliQure is a recently founded Vienna based biotech company focusing on the development of live attenuated bacterial vaccines for the prevention of diarrheal diseases that are highly relevant for travelers and young children living in developing countries.
LISAvienna Medtech Award: Hand-in-Scan
The Clariton team and its international partners develop, validate and commercialize a hand hygiene system—named Hand-in-Scan—for the digital imaging technology-based direct and objective evaluation of hand washing. Their mission is to effectively reduce the 1.4 million daily HAI cases, saving the life of 200,000 people annually. The project was awarded with the LISAvienna Medtech Award.