Winners 2017

Winners 2017

Phase 1 - The three most innovative business ideas!​

31 teams from 3 countries took part in the first phase of the competition and submitted their business ideas. The majority of the projects (15) came from the field of Medical Technology, which emphasizes its growing role in the Austrian Life Science landscape.

White and Red Biotechnology were represented by five projects each, followed by Supply and Service Applications with three projects. Finally, Green Biotechnology was represented by two projects, ad one project was classified as Biotechnology in general.​

42 experts from such fields as Science, Financing, Intellectual Property, Marketing and Industry evaluated the projects and selected winners of the Phase I. The valuable feedback, provided by the evaluators, will help the teams to improve their business ideas and reach their final goal - implement their business plan as a Start Up. ​​

On April 27, 2017, the three winner teams presented their ideas to the public and potential investors and received a cash prize of € 1,500 each at the Award Ceremony, held at Ocean´sky - Haus des Meeres.​​

The winning teams:​​

NP Life Science Technologies KG (Austria)​

mplantable degradable scaffolds with parallel micro-channels supporting a faster regeneration of traumatized nerves in the organism by facilitating an oriented growth of the nerve fibres. NP Life Science Technologies KG develops and produces an implantablebiodegradable scaffold that supports the regeneration of damaged, dissected, cut peripheral nerves. It has a length of several millimetres and consists of numerous parallel aligned microchannels with a diameter of a 100-200 µm. Thus, the scaffold resembles the extracellular matrix of a nerve. It gives immediate growth guidance for micrometre large regenerating nerve cells and protrusion from the proximal to the distal nerve stump. Benefits for patients are a faster regeneration of damaged peripheral nerves due to existing growth guidance, going along with a fast recovery and a sustained quality of life. The health care system and labour market profit by shorter medical after-treatment, faster reintegration in the labour market and less occupational redeployment.​

SODISENS (Austria)​

SODISENS is a new, portable, non-invasive point-of-care test for the rapid identification of body sodium status disorders, a health issue affecting up to two billion subjects worldwide. Disorders of body sodium (Na) status are significant health issues affecting up to two billion subjects worldwide. At present, Na-status is assessed invasively by measuring Na-concentration in blood plasma. SODISENS provides a new, non-invasive point-of-care test (PoCT) that enables the rapid diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of Na-balance. The PoCT is portable and easy to handle, and therefore accessible and performable at any time by medical personnel or by the patient him/herself. Such an easy-to-perform on-site test allows patients highest mobility and flexibility, while reducing the risk of severe complications that may result from Na-balance disorders. For the health care system, this means reduced number of patient visits and costs.​

Vacthera - UniFluVec (Austria)​

Vacthera is a biotechnology company developing influenza virus based vaccines and cancer immunotherapies. Vacthera is a biotechnology company developing influenza virus based vaccines and - cancer immunotherapies. Vacthera’s patented platform technology allows genetic modification of the influenza virus to be used as safe but efficient prophylactic vaccines against various diseases or as therapeutic vaccines against cancer. Although our platform technology allows generation of vaccines for a number of infectious diseases including influenza, RSV, herpes or tuberculosis (unpublished), Vacthera intends to undergo first preclinical development for two initial products, namely a universal influenza vaccine and an oncolytic virus. UniFluVec is a universal Influenza vaccine allowing the efficient protection against various influenza types and subtypes. OncoFluVec is an anti-cancer vaccine (oncolytic influenza virus) allowing immunological destruction of cancers. Both products will be produced to high yields in embryonated chicken eggs and purified by a Vacthera’s proprietary technology.​

Phase 2 - and the final winners!​

On November 22nd the winners of BoB 2017 have been announced at the festive award ceremony in Vienna. ​​​​​​​​

30 projects have been submitted at phase 2 of the competition. The 10 best teams did receive individual businessplan- and presentation coaching. Each team had the opportunity to convice the jury of their business concept.​​​​​​​​

In the end the winning teams were:​​​​​​​​

1st prize winner sponsored by Shire: BHS Technology ​​​​​​​

BHS was found in February 2017 to develop a disruptive medical device, which will enhance the performance of microsurgical procedures for all participants - patient, surgeon and hospital.  After a successful demonstration of the concept, the team has started to develop the product for clinical use.​

2nd prize winner sponsored by Roche Diagnostics and Roche Austria: MacroArray Diagnostics​​​​​​​​​​

Allergies and asthma affect one at least a quarter of the population. While often harmless, an increasing number of people suffer from severe allergies, resulting in more than 30.000 avoidable deaths per year.  Presently, there is no cost-efficient technology to improve the quality of diagnosis to an optimal level for patient-tailored and evidence based treatment.  The consequences of technology lagging knowledge are: generally elevated disease management costs, reduced quality of life and avoidable deaths.  We develop a multi-parameter allergy test covering close to 100% of the globally relevant allergens in a single lab test.

3rd prize winner sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim: ImageBiopsy Lab​​​​​​​​

The objective of ImageBiopsy Lab (IB Lab GmbH) is to provide the tools for an effective treatment of knee-osteoarthritis. So far, osteoarthritis progression is considered to be hardly stoppable. Our software solution will change this.  IB Lab simplifies and accelerates the assessment, follow-up and prediction of knee osteoarthritis. Different stages of osteoarthritis and their accompanying symptoms are thus measured objectively and with minimal effort. An early prediction is possible for the first time without additional imaging efforts. The time-to-result is reduced from up to 3 minutes to a few seconds.   This means a significant relief for the medical professional in the daily routine. In addition, clearly defined treatment paths can be initiated on the basis of objectively measured parameters, resulting in an effective treatment of osteoarthritis progression.

Medtech Award winner sponsored by LISAVienna: MorphoMed

MorphoMed GmbH (founded 2.5.2017) is a Vienna-based medical technology start-up company, specializing in the development and commercialization of Class III medical products for regenerating endogenous natural tissue (e.g. ligaments or tendons) using proprietary protected medical silk manufacturing technology. MorphoMed wants to become a sustainable player in the field of regenerative, silk based medicine.   The company's lead product is an anterior cruciate ligament made of medical silk (RegACL - "regenerative anterior cruciate ligament"), which has already been successfully tested in studies with large animals (sheep). The development, production, clinical approval, product launch and sales of RegACL will form the technological and commercial basis for building up MorphoMed GmbH and for the development of derived and related silk products.  Before becoming cash positive in 2021, financing of EUR 2,9 Million is needed from private equity, public grants and strategic cooperation partners. Commercial success will be driven by the development and market introduction of the lead product RegACL but also by a strong pipeline of related products based on the silk manufacturing technology.​​​​​​

More impressions on the final award ceremony can be found here!


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