Nine Israeli startups were selected last week to take part in PlayBeyondBio 2021 and help turn their biotech innovations into market realities.
The PlayBeyondBio initiative is led by the venture capital fund JVP, British-Swedish pharma giant AstraZeneca, international consulting firm Accenture, Margalit Startup City, Amazon AWS, and the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.
The companies selected and described in a press release are:
> C2i Genomics, which provides personalized technology for cancer monitoring based on standard blood tests
> Nucleai, a precision medicine company that has developed an AI-powered image analysis platform to unlock the power of spatial biology from pathology images
> Itamar Medical technology company that is developing non-invasive medical devices and solutions to aid in the diagnosis of Sleep Breathing Disorders and early detection of exacerbation in Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients
> Medial Earlysign, which is focused on turning clinical data to meaningful insights that are used to support clinical decisions
> Ibex, a company pioneering AI-based cancer diagnostics in pathology
> Octopus.health personal healthcare assistant for patients that has been found to improve patient adherence to their care plans as well as better manage their condition
> Imagene, which provides an Al-based genomic testing solution to assist cancer patients in receiving the optimal treatment that medicine can offer by leveraging their biopsy image for personalized therapeutics
> iCardio.ai, which designs machine learning algorithms for everything echo, leveraging a database of 200M+ individual echo images and the iCardio.ai Platform
> Cordio, which has solutions to monitor several health conditions by analyzing voice/speech samples
“The nine start-ups selected to take part in the program were accepted after a rigorous and thorough selection process that saw before its eyes the need of the hour and the opportunities inherent in medicine in the next decade,” said Shimon Elkabetz, Accenture Israel’s country managing director. “As a company that proudly carries the banner of technological leadership and innovation around the world, we have no doubt that this leading team faithfully represents the best up and coming trends in the worlds of medtech and wellness.”
The selection process emphasized companies that develop tools capable of predicting and pre-diagnosing illnesses. Specifically, the judges looked for those companies who work with the world’s three leading causes of death: cancer, heart and kidney diseases and respiratory illnesses.
PlayBeyondBio is a six-month program. The selected startups are supported by the sponsors to help put them on a fast-track path toward pilot development, validation and investment so they can go to market. The program includes mentoring in the medical realm, as well as on regulation and business models.
“We will help these companies move on to the next stage on the way to becoming larger and more significant,” said JVP and Margalit Startup City founder Erel Margalit.