On May 19, 2021, the BIH Digital Health Accelerator (DHA) Demo Day took place for the fourth time. The DHA program is carried out by Charité BIH Innovation, the joint technology transfer office of Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH), for the development of digital health solutions and their translation into medical applications or the healthcare market.
Ten teams from Charité including BIH presented innovative digital health solutions that they have developed over the past six months in the first phase of the DHA program. The solutions come from a broad range of fields with anesthesiology, biochemistry, bioinformatics/genetics, cardiac surgery, neurology, pathology, pediatric cardiology, psychiatry, radiology, and theoretical biology/oncology.
More than 650 participants from clinics, research, industry, and health insurance companies, as well as entrepreneurs and investors followed via video stream the live presentations. After the presentations, many of the participants also seized the opportunity to engage in direct dialogues with teams in individual breakout sessions. The Demo Day was not only a premiere due to the new virtual format, but also gave a first insight into the new space of BIH Digital Labs with the Digital Health Accelerator directly at river Spree in close proximity to Charité Campus Mitte in Berlin.
Professor Dr. Christopher Baum, Chairman of the BIH Board of Directors and Member of the Board of Charité, opened the event and emphasized the relevance of Digital Health for BIH: “Without question, the field of Digital Health plays a key role in the ongoing transformation of the health sector. Since its inception, the BIH Digital Health Accelerator Program has been a great success. To date, over 25 projects could be supported and the first examples of successful translation have already materialized.”
The keynote address “From Bench to Startup” by Dr. Anh Hoang-Lindsay, Boston-based Founder and Chief Science Officer at Sofregen Medical and Faculty of the MIT Catalyst linQ program, received a great response. Focusing on researchers with an interest in medical translation and entrepreneurship, Dr. Hoang vividly shared her career path as a scientist at Harvard Medical School/MGH to co-founding a successful startup.
Professor Dr. Axel R. Pries, Dean and Member of the Board of Charité, thanked the project teams in his closing remarks: “What we saw today fills us with great inspiration. Inspiration that people at Charité dedicate themselves to the considerable effort of working on important translational projects in addition to their highly relevant contributions in research and clinical practice. We thank the project team leaders and their teams for their hard work to benefit patients. We believe, that this set-up with BIH at Charité can generate substantial medical value.”
Selected teams will now be invited to the second phase of the DHA program to focus on developing market-ready or application-ready digital health products and preparing for transfer to the healthcare market or medical application. In addition to financial support, the teams will receive expert mentoring, team completion support, access to industry and investors, as well as access to the BIH Digital Labs co-working space for their interdisciplinary work.
The next Call for Applications for BIH Digital Health Accelerator program will take place in fall 2021.
