Merck, a leading science and technology company, announced today the new startups participating in its Accelerator programs in Darmstadt, Germany and Nairobi, Kenya. The two program locations accept startups from different fields within Merck's core specialisms: Darmstadt takes startups from the fields of healthcare, life sciences and performance materials, while Nairobi works exclusively on innovations in digital healthcare. Overall, the number of applications increased by 82%; applications were received from 72 countries worldwide. In the latest startup barometer from Ernst & Young, the "Health" category already stood out as one of the growing startup industries. Within the health sector, Venture Capital investments in life science has also increased considerably.
In Darmstadt, the newly selected teams are working on low-cost, highly sensitive sample carriers, an interactive game for pediatric oncology patients and hydrogels for preclinical drug discovery. Another startup for Darmstadt is in the field of performance materials; Inuru are developing inks and technologies for regular printers in order to reduce the costs for the production of OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes). OLEDs can be used to create super-thin light displays, which have applications in areas such as printed advertising.
The three startups in Nairobi are all dedicated to healthcare problems; however, their use-cases differ from fighting drug counterfeiting with AI, to a software platform that uses medical records to predict and detect diseases early, and a program for data management of global health supply chains.
Michael Gamber, Head of the Innovation Center in Darmstadt commented on the selection of the startups: "We were impressed by the high number of good-quality applications we received for the fourth round of our program in Darmstadt and the third round in Nairobi, and are happy to see the worldwide proliferation of promising startups in our three main fields - healthcare, life science and performance materials. The increasing demand for capital support for startups in the health sector is also reflected in our Accelerator applications."
For the first time since its inception, this round of the Merck Accelerator sees projects coming from the Merck Hackathons – Peach, a cloud-based medical records system which will be taking up its Accelerator place in Nairobi, was initially developed during the Merck Health + Innovation Hackathon Accra, while TOMMI, an interactive game and companion for children in cancer care which will be developed in Darmstadt, has its roots in the H-ACK Merck for Health Hackathon Rome.
The following fact sheet introduces all of the current startups from the Merck Accelerator in Darmstadt and Nairobi.
The startups from the Accelerator in Darmstadt
ATR Elements
This startup from Munich, Germany, makes infrared spectroscopy - which is used for blood testing - much cheaper and more efficient. The team, headed Alex Geißler, Lorenz Sykora and Anja Müller, has developed the core component that is needed for IR spectroscopy, a sample carrier, from low-cost highly sensitive silicon crystal. ATR Elements’ crystal will make blood & biofluid analysis, not only cheaper but also more hygienic and precise. The ATR crystal is more sensitive than current solutions, and works also with small sample volumes.
Ectica Technologies
The team around Dr. Benjamin Simona and Dr. Vincent Milleret from Zurich, Switzerland develops hydrogel-based laboratory products, such as the 3DProSeed plate that enables pharma companies, CROs (Contract Research Organizations) and academic labs to carry out preclinical drug discovery on a new level. Drug research at the moment is mostly based on 2D cell culture experiments, but those are different from human tissues and could therefore give distorted results. However, the hydrogel-based consumable products by Ectica Technologies allow researchers to create a 3D cell culture for cell-based assays that are very similar to the normal conditions of cell cultures in the human body.
INURU GmbH
Inuru is a startup operating in the field of performance materials from Berlin, Germany. The co-founders Marcin Ratajczak and Patrick Barkowski developed an ink for regular printers in order to print OLEDs (organic ligh...
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