EIT Health Accelerator recognised for work in its early years

EIT Health’s Accelerator programme has been recognised by UBI Global in its ‘most promising – young programme’ category, for its ‘impressive overall achievements relative to its age’, which specifically assesses accelerators that have been operating for three years or less at the time of submission.

UBI Global, the innovation intelligence company, released the top lists of business incubators and accelerators as assessed in the World Benchmark Study 2019-2020. The recognitions and announcements took place at the World Incubation Summit 2019 in Doha, Qatar on 6 November.

EIT Health Accelerator is a business creation programme, set up to support health industry entrepreneurs and start-ups, providing skills and services to develop competitive new companies. The programme provides support at every stage of the process – for those that are not yet entrepreneurs or scientists, to more mature start-ups and SMEs focussed on market expansion.

Over the past three years, EIT Health supported starts-ups have attracted a total of more than €90 million in investment. The Accelerator programme has grown each year and so far, has supported more than 400 start-ups and supported innovative new companies such as Diabeloop who have developed an artificial pancreas solution for diabetes, and Peptomyc, who are investigating a new potential cancer therapy.

Dr Kurt Höller, director of business creation at EIT Health and recently appointed UBI global research advisory board member and EU ambassador, said: “It is fantastic to be recognised at this stage of the journey for our programme. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved in just three years and the fact that we are able to tangibly demonstrate our performance and impact. The recognition demonstrates that our extensive network – including key mentors, investors and industry players – really does provide the access, exposure and support that promising new ventures need.  

“We also congratulate another member of the EIT community, our colleagues at EIT Digital, which has been ranked among the top five public accelerators worldwide, and as we continue to grow, we hope to join them in this rankings position. Based on the speed of growth experienced so far, EIT Health is well on the way to becoming one of the leading business creation programmes in healthcare, globally – we are looking forward to seeing what we can achieve in our next three years.”

The UBI Global World Benchmark Study looks at business incubation and acceleration on a global scale and in the 2019-2020 report, 364 programmes have been listed among the world’s top programmes.

Holger Meyer, director of research at UBI Global, said: “Following a rigorous data-driven approach, we assessed and benchmarked incubation programmes across the world. Our World Benchmark Study 2019 - 2020 is in tune with the multiple facets of the international incubation ecosystem and illustrates key challenges and opportunities faced by the participating programmes.”

EIT Health recently published its Three years of life-changing healthcare innovation across Europe report, providing an overview of the first three years of operation, including achievements, growth and most importantly, impact.