In 2022 the Romanian HealthTech ecosystem grew in maturity and got more visibility on the European map of HealthTech innovation, with the support of catalyst organizations like FreshBlood and ROHealth and through the achievements of MedTech startups like re.flex. The ecosystem has seen in 2022 the launch of Hubvantage, a new mentorship program with the objective of capacity building at the level of the healthtech ecosystem and of BIOdyssey, a hub dedicated to healthcare innovation.

Together with Dr. Ion-Gheorghe Petrovai, Co-Founder and Director of Innovation at FreshBlood HealthTech, the local NGO representing EIT Health in Romania, we reviewed the main highlights of the Romanian HealthTech ecosystem in 2022.

Launch of the Hubvantage mentorship program

Launched at the begining of 2022, Hubvantage is a program organized in collaboration by FreshBlood, HIVE Center for Health Innovation of Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca and Activize that has the objective of capacity building at the level of the HealthTech ecosystem. 

The program is supported by EIT Health and helps health tech founders get reality based feedback from mentors and from more advanced startup founders from the health tech ecosystem.

“Until now we’ve organized seven events that had the purpose of exposing the founders to relevant information, both technical and activity based from the more advanced founders, as well as exposing the doctors with HealthTech, to the innovation mindset and methodology, and examples of innovation from the ecosystem. We are also organizing mentorship sessions based on an evaluation of startup needs that are answered by relevant mentors as well as more advanced founders.”, says Dr. Ion-Gheorghe Petrovai, Co-Founder and Director of Innovation at FreshBlood HealthTech, the local NGO representing EIT Health in Romania.

Re.flex, a Romanian HealthTech startup included in the apps approved to be reimbursed in Germany through the DiGA system

In 2022, Romania got more visible on the map of HealthTech innovation and one of the examples is re.flex, a Romanian startup which was included in the apps approved to be reimbursed in Germany through the DiGA system. 

DiGAs are “apps on prescription”, digital health applications that can be prescribed by doctors for patient use for a variety of diagnoses. The introduction of DiGAs is quite revolutionary, and Germany has officially introduced a legal framework to include digital health care innovation into primary care.

re.flex is the most accurate digital assistant for MSK physical therapy on the market. It helps patients treat knee, hip and lower back pain effectively and lasting, using validated exercise protocols. With proven results in reducing pain and improving the quality of life, re.flex offers instant 3D feedback to help patients exercise correctly.

In March, FreshBlood organized an event called Morning Health Talks, which talked specifically about the re.flex achievement of being accepted into DiGA. And this provided a lot of inspiration for potential founders by showcasing the example of the re.flex founder, Camil Moldoveanu, and his team.

“When we started five years ago with FresBlood, we wanted to put Romania on the map. And I do believe that re.flex is the proof of innovation made in Romania that can become a reference in much more advanced markets.”, says Dr. Ion-Gheorghe Petrovai from FreshBlood HealthTech.

FreshBlood, part of an international consortium with the purpose of identifying and consolidating a portfolio of demand led solutions for the healthcare ecosystem

Recently, FreshBlood became part of an international consortium called DIGIT-PRE, made up of 10 different partners, with the objective to build a collaboration between different partners with the purpose of identifying and consolidating a portfolio of demand led solutions to digitize prevention, prediction and remote care in the healthcare ecosystem. 

The project is focused on the development of the local ecosystem through a call named Interventional Innovation Investment. This consortium is coordinated by ISAB INNOVATION SKANE from Sweden and includes partners from France, Belgium, Finland, Portugal and as well as Hungary and Romania.

“DIGIT-PRE is one of the highlights of the Romanian HealthTech ecosystem, not just for the end of 2022, but will be one of the highlights in the future. We are very happy to be one of the representatives of the Eastern Europe, putting Romania again on the map of healthcare innovation. We are looking forward to connecting this opportunity with the smart specialization strategy of the North-West Region of Romania, but as well as with other regions of Romania.”, says Dr. Ion-Gheorghe Petrovai from FreshBlood HealthTech.

Healthcare innovation was identified as one of the three priorities of the smart specialization strategy for the Nord-West Region of Romania, so the participation of FreshBlood in the consortium is well in sync with the expectations of growth of the regional ecosystem.

“FreshBlood is a main regional actor for the ecosystem, and its actions of identifying and consolidating a portfolio of demand led solutions for the healthcare ecosystem are filling an important gap between various actors. The strengthening of FreshBlood as an organization, especially with a participation in an international consortium is very well welcomed and in direct correlation with the expectations of growth of our ecosystem. After a rigorous process, health was identified as one of the three priorities of the Smart Specialization Strategy for the Nord-West Region of Romania. So, sustaining the regional HealthTech ecosystem with specific actions correlated with the main needs for its growth is a key area of focus for RDA North-West. This focus is provided through the action plan of the RIS3, including the North-West Regional Programme for 2021-2027 programming period.”, said Cristian Otgon, Head of Smart Specialization Department at North-West Regional Development Agency of Romania.

The North-West Regional Development Agency of Romania, together with Digital Innovation Zone from Iași, was also part of the EIT Health DRIVE program in 2022, designed to upskill organizations from Central-Eastern and Southern Europe in designing validated, sustainable health & life science startup support programmes tailored to regional needs.

Global StartupCities eHealth Program 2022 announced its winner

Global Startup Cities eHealth program was organized by the Hive Center for Health Innovation together with Cluj-Napoca City Hall and Linnify, identifying and supporting startups in the early stage in order to validate their solution through a model that was proposed by Linnify.

This multi-stage EU eHealth startups competition is a chapter of the Global StartupCity Cluj-Napoca and it’s designed to help early stage health innovation entrepreneurs transform their ideas into world changing companies, faster and smarter. Within this program, Cluj-Napoca is taking care of the healthcare and AI components.

The program and the final competition took place in October 2022 and the winning startup, Synaptiq.io, was promoted through the network of global startup cities at the Unique Summit conference in Braga, Portugal, at the end of November. 

“Global StartupCities Health Initiative means for the city of Cluj-Napoca an amazing opportunity to develop and offer support to the regional ehealth ecosystem, by providing to startups customized training and mentoring through its support process. Additionally, the winner of the StartupCities competition will benefit by support for scientific validation and medium-term mentoring.”, says Razvan M. Chereches, MD PhD, Director HIVE Health Innovation Center.

A growth of maturity at the level of the national HealthTech ecosystem

We are seeing a growth of maturity at the level of the national HealthTech ecosystem with some opportunities potentially provided by the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Romania (PNRR) financed by the EU. The telemedicine norms have been released at the end of September and there is hope that Romanian telemedicine startups will also benefit from the implementation of this regulation. 

The end of the year also saw the launch of BIOdyssey, an innovation hub based in Bucharest, which is dedicated to healthcare and it is supported both by the university environment as well as by know-how brought from the USA, but filtered in Israel for a better connection with the environment in Eastern Europe. This hub will train innovators and later on provide the additional funding solutions to the innovators that are actually growing their project at the fundable level.

“BIOdyssey is the first hub focused on innovation in HealthTech in Romania, founded with experts in the field from Israel and the US. Through BIOdyssey we want to help those Romanians who want to develop HealthTech solutions and have an impact on healthcare with the help of technology, by offering them all tools and assistance they need to succeed: an innovation framework which has been tested and validated for many years in Israel, access to international experts in the technical, medical and business fields from Israel, the USA and Japan (among others) to mentor our teams, to help them with identifying and validating ideas that are competitive at a global level and to give them support on the technical and business implementation of those ideas. Concretely, this would include helping entrepreneurs find investors in their field, and opportunities to access our international network of hospitals and accelerators. BIOdyssey offers all of this through 2 distinct programs: the Germination program, which has already started and can be compared to a “Mini MBA for startups” focused on identifying and validating business ideas. The acceleration program follows the 1st, and is focused on accelerating the most promising ideas and teams from the Germination program. Though startups which have not gone through the Germination program are also eligible to apply. BIOdyssey is the bridge in HealthTech between Romania and the most innovative ecosystems in HealthTech in the world: Israel and the US.”, says Elena Ovreiu, co-founder and CEO BIOdyssey.

One other highlight of autumn was the annual hackathon for health organized by the Medical University in Bucharest together with support from Johnson & Johnson. This hackathon once again showed the potential of Romanian innovators to solve relevant problems. Another hackathon, EIT i-Days, was organized in Cluj-Napoca, at the Hive Center for Health Innovation, with support by EIT Health. The event focused on neurology and enjoyed the collaboration with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the jury at the final presentation.

The ecosystem saw activity also at the level of clusters, the healthcare clusters now having their regular conference, at the end of October. Not only a conference where you see people from different institutes of research or from different companies which are focused on innovation in healthcare, but an opportunity to connect to international organizations to explore the partnerships and see potential opportunities of developing your own projects. The BEhealth conference organized by ROHealth cluster, is now an important part of the ecosystem, with FreshBlood and EIT Health supporting both the educational session as well as the international startup competition that took place in the conference.

“Our focus for the next year is very much linked with sustainability. Because in the future there will be less and less money coming from the EU to support innovation. And we need to find internal resources both public and private. And this is going to be done only through partnerships. We are beginning to explore partnerships with potential other players in the ecosystem. We will prepare a fundraising campaign for the beginning of the next year, as well as building on the projects that have been visible and that can make a difference in healthcare in Romania, Europe and in the world.”, says Dr. Ion-Gheorghe Petrovai, Co-Founder and Director of Innovation at FreshBlood HealthTech.

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In a first of a kind move in the academic history of the city, the big four universities of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, gathered their forces to organize Innovation Days (iDays), an innovathon dedicated to healthcare, which took place in Cluj between 1-2 November 2019. This is the first time such an event was organized by all the big universities in Cluj as equal partners, bringing together their knowledge in the benefit of the patients, the healthcare system and the community as a whole. Cluj-Napoca (often referred to simply as Cluj) is the unofficial capital of Transylvania and one of the most vibrant and cosmopolitan cities in Eastern Europe, a cultural center, an academic hub, and of one the most important innovation hubs of the country.

The participating universities were Babes-Bolyai University (UBB), the University of Medicine and Pharmacy (UMF), the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine (USAMV), and the Technical University (UTCN), with the support of the Liver Research Club and the Student Entrepreneurship Association “Iuliu Hațieganu”. The 8 hours long innovathon was part of the EIT Health iDays, an event which took place in 31 locations within several countries across Europe, during which students met to develop and present their digital health projects. The event aims to show how innovative ideas targeting the health sector can be transformed into real life projects, with impact on the patients and the healthcare system. During the program, students are presented with practical tools for health innovation and work in multidisciplinary teams to address real health challenges.

iDays is a unique annual series of events designed to promote innovation in healthcare among students, through a 2 day program conducted within academic institutions in Europe. The event was held in some of the top universities in Europe, like Oxford and Imperial College in the UK or the University of Tartu in Estonia (ranked as one of the best in Eastern Europe). Romania is one of the 20 EU countries where iDays were organized this year, with the support of FreshBlood HealthTech Community, the EIT Health RIS hub for Romania. EIT Health is an European network of 140 leading medical, pharmaceutical, technology companies, research institutions and universities, supported by the European Union.

Making an impact together

The host of the event, UMF, already had a group which was working on innovation and digital health, but decided to co-organize this event when they noticed that within their incubator they were lacking the know-how from the technical part or some other input that could be complimented from people with different backgrounds, more likely to be found in this kind of competitions.

“I think it’s a first step of bringing all the universities on the same table and to actually realize that we have the knowledge to properly impact our communities.”, said Radu Pirlog, PhD student at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy, member of the jury and representative of university hosting the event.

While for the universities its important to know each other, to see what kind of projects they are each involved in and to apply together for funding to support their research and innovation, from the point of view of the innovation ecosystem, there is a big need to put together the research part with the practical aspects of the research, to create a link between the academia and the startups environment ecosystem, and the students are seen as having a great potential, as they can be a link between these two, as they are more open minded and more eager to develop their ideas.

“I believe that’s the role of universities, as hubs and accelerators of knowledge producing, and I believe we need to move into to the next steps, not just doing business as usual, doing education, as we did until now, but we need to step it up, to actually push the students to face real life problems and try to generate real life solutions”, said Razvan Chereches, professor of Public Health at Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj.

During the event, the students formed multidisciplinary teams (with medical, technical or economic backgrounds) and tried to solve real healthcare challenges, focusing on the medical care outside the hospital, at home. To address the challenges, they used their business skills and digital health ideas, while mentors with experience in the field of healthcare innovation helped them build their projects. At the end of the event, the teams presented their ideas and were judged by a group of experts who used standardized scoring criteria to award the best teams.

“For students I think it’s really important to see that they get support, and that the faculty acknowledges them, their potential in doing more than learning in different classes, on taking exams. For our faculty this is really important because if they succeed, we succeed.”, said Adina Rus, from the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj, and member of the jury at iDays Cluj.

Bringing change by addressing real life problems

The jury chose as the winner of the competition a project called Simply Care, a personal health assistant, a wristband that will give advice based on the condition of the patient. Simply Care targets old people which don’t understand their disease and need support in a situation where the medical doctors don’t always have time to follow them and to give them explanation on a day to day basis. 

“It was really nice to make something really from nothing, in just one day. It was a lot of pressure, because you have to do a lot of research, to be sure that your solutions attacks the problem, and it’s relevant and a strong one. And you have only one day to build a business, which is really hard, but also exhilarating when you succeed.”, said Beniamin Matei from the winning team of the iDays Cluj, with project Simply Care.

The winning team will participate to the Winners Event, which will take place in Paris on December 1st, 2019, where they will meet with colleagues from all the participating universities. During the event in Paris, the students will be provided with support and resources to further develop their ideas and will also receive additional training in innovation methodology.

“We have a lot of work to do, in food, in health, in public services. We have to change a lot of things, and with this involvement of the students, we can do more for the community of Cluj, and our region.”, said Lucian Cuibus, from the University of Agriculture, Food and Veterinary Medicine of Cluj.

The civil society creates the glue of the innovation ecosystem

As EIT Health is trying to establish and promote the cooperation between universities and industry, the significant glue for an ecosystem to foster innovation is seen as the self organized element of the ecosystem, the civil society. And this is where Cluj, compared to other regions of Romania and even compared to other cities in the CEE, makes a significant difference, by having a good cohesion between the key players of the ecosystem, mostly because the vibrancy of its civil society. This makes the whole communication between the partners not about what is in the research department of the universities, or what is in the technology departments of the industry, but it’s building up from the actual needs of the market, which are the patients, which is the unmet need, where the whole ecosystem should be built around.

“I believe that innovation is about private individuals and Cluj happens to have some very strong, very dedicated private individuals. That’s one of the most important factors for innovation, because if you don’t have dedicated private people who have the ambition to make the system better, then it will not work. The civil society is very present in Cluj and I am missing this one, even in my own ecosystem in Budapest, because that is the glue, that is what is taking the whole system together, the catalyst, which makes it move. Everybody is very happy in the status quo, and everybody knows the change is painful, change is difficult, change will help some, and change will deprive some from the rights from the status and everything, but change is inevitable, the digital has come, up on our necks, you cannot resist it, so it’s better just to get in front and just start a change”, said Marton Kis, Health Innovation Expert from the Semmelweis University, Budapest.

FreshBlood, a Cluj based NGO which aims to support health-related startups is now seen by most of the key players in the local ecosystem as the main catalyst for healthcare innovation, and an expression of the involvement of the local civil society. FreshBlood is also one of the hubs of the EIT Health in Romania, and in May 2019 has become connected to the European Connected Health Alliance, a European network of ecosystems, forming the regional network Transylvania Digital Health Ecosystem, with the purpose of increasing the quality of the regional health services, through European collaboration and technology. The vision of the Transylvanian Digital Health Ecosystem is to become a dedicated healthcare focused innovation accelerator for Eastern Europe. 

A win – win situation for the universities, the students, the patients, the local community, and the businesses

For the universities, an event like iDays brings visibility and new opportunities for collaborations, both with the local and international partners, while for the students it brings opportunities to work in an multidisciplinary environment, opening their minds, finding new ways of approaching their ideas of healthcare. For the students of medicine in particular, events like this makes them understand what healthcare is outside of the patients and outside of the disease, by approaching healthcare in a more holistic way. For the local community the hope is that some of the ideas that are going to be generated in such events, can be applied in the future, for the benefit of the community.

“I think for the local community, it offers an opportunity for students to innovate. Students need events where they can innovate. An event that’s taking place each year, can have a good impact on community because some of the ideas can be can can become startups, real products on the market, and this is something interesting for community, to have their own products, which are innovative and started from here from Cluj.”, said Valentin Sita from the Technical University of Cluj.

Thinking of EIT Health, its main mission and vision, to facilitate the conversion of the research and the conversion of the technology of research of universities and technology and product scopes of industry, for long time, due to a rusty mentality, this two tended to speak in parallel, not matching their ideas, not getting into actual production. That’s why for the ecosystem it’s important to catalyze the transition and the communication, and to put into the scope the actual need of the patient, the unmet need, so that the two main players, the academia and the industry, can align, and the final result to become useful and sustainable.

As a next step for the ecosystem, the idea of a healthcare innovation incubator in Cluj is starting to take roots, and has attracted supporters from outside Romania too. Roel Kamerling, managing coordinator for public-private innovation programs at the Technical University of Delft (TU Delft), the Netherlands is one of them. During a visit to assess the health innovation ecosystem of Cluj, Roel endorsed the idea of creating a innovation incubator in Cluj, a place where startups from the HealthTech area could develop, receive support and get connections to relevant partners, based on the model of the YES!Delft incubator, ranked the best business incubator affiliated with a university in Europe, according to the UBI Ranking, and number 2 in the world.

For Cluj, the future of innovation looks bright, as Razvan Chereches sees the ecosystem strongly coming together, and the universities transforming themselves and becoming a force for innovation in the city: “In Cluj we have the ferment for a real culture of innovation. There are a lot of forces are coming together and they’re starting to complement each other. We have a chance here to transform the university into what it was meant to be initially: integrating the community and pushing the community forward.”.

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