Health Innovation Hub Ireland awards 2020 winners

The 2020 winners of Health Innovation Hub Ireland’s call for innovative ideas from companies, start-ups, and SMEs have been announced.

The national call which involved a nationwide health innovation competition is directed at companies who have an innovative product, solution or service that are at pre-commercial or late development phase with the potential to significantly impact Irish healthcare.

The call is particularly relevant this year as the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for innovation in healthcare.

In addition, based on HSE input, HIHI also launched a focussed call for the prevention, early diagnosis, and self-management of chronic illness including cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and diabetes.

This year there has been a marked surge in companies developing health solutions that reflect global health trends and a particular focus on digital and telehealth solutions is emerging.

Health Innovation Hub Ireland awards 2020 winners

Forty-eight cutting edge innovators competed for the opportunity to avail of the unique HIHI innovation pathway for companies seeking pilot or validation studies.

Acting as a broker  HIHI matches companies with relevant clinical teams, oversees a study of each product in an Irish clinical setting, and delivers an outcome report.

This going forward, supports the adoption of products in national and international markets, enhances distribution opportunities, and assists in the continued development for those companies.

HIHI is a joint initiative of the Department of Health and the Department of Business Enterprise and Innovation. 

Our activity is strengthened through the support of Enterprise Ireland and the HSE.  HIHI offers companies the opportunity for pilot studies and provides the health service with access to innovative products, services, and devices.

Since it was launched in September 2016, HIHI has managed 300 company engagements, 193 of these have resulted in follow-up support activities and 60 of these have developed into active projects within the Irish healthcare system.

HIHI also recently triaged almost 200 innovative healthcare solutions through its Covid-19 Innovation Portal.

Irish companies are developing innovative healthcare solutions for patients at home and internationally, by supporting these companies through HIHI, we are strengthening our economy while improving patient care.

This year’s final of the HIHI 2020 Health Innovation Competition represented the culmination of a nationwide search to identify up and coming healthcare companies with the potential to scale their business.

Twenty-three made it through to our dragon’s den style pitch panels which included experts from HSE, Enterprise Ireland, HRB, SFI, CRCI, Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Department of Health, clinicians, and industry.

There were 15 ultimate winners with strong competition amongst this year’s entries, 5 of these winners address the theme of the focussed call- ‘supporting self-management of chronic illness’.

Many of these solutions leverage technology to enable care in the community, which  (in the current pandemic) is now a necessity.

HIHI will now match the winning companies with relevant clinical teams, overseeing a study of each product in an Irish clinical setting.

These pilot and clinical validation studies provide critical testbeds to support Irish companies going to market and can identify any further refinements in the development cycle.

The aim is to ultimately ensure that the best Irish healthcare solutions are delivered to patients.

For more information on this get in touch via the link  https://hih.ie/engage/health-innovations-2020/

Or get in contact with  Caroline.mcgarry@ucc.ie,

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