This challenge is a business idea competiton with an aim to promote innovation in the field of hospital patient care. The goal of this challenge is to accelerate innovative projects and their commercialization.

The cause is of high interest to Debiopharm as the company finds innovation in the patient care sector a challenging and highly relevant issue.

Fondation Inartis is lead by top professionals aiming to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. It has extensive experience in particular in Pharma, Biotech and Medtech areas.

The project should be innovative, feasible, preferably linked with Academia and/or the Industry, and have an impact on the end-user and have a potential socioeconomic impact.

The projects should be submitted by 30th April 2024 end of day.

April 30, 2024: Project submission deadline
May 2024: Announcement of the winning projects
Autumn 2024: Final pitch and Award ceremony

The prize money amount to CH50’000. CHF25’000 will be awarded to the winner and the rest of the money will be distributed between the finalists. Additionally Fondaiton Inartis will provide support and coach the projects close to commercialization.

The jury is composed of :

David Deperthes, Consultant en entrepreneuriat, Président du jury

Pierre-Luc Maillefer, Ingénieur en dispositifs médicaux

Catherine Djaouti, Infirmière et COO de La-Solution.ch

Michèle Joanisse, Directrice de la Fondation CHUV

Pietro Scalfaro, Médecin pédiatre, Co-fondateur biotech

Gaetan Cherix, directeur de la HEI-HES-SOValais

Fondation Inartis has a network of more than 20000 professionals and offers support for entrepreneurs in coaching, licensing, hosting and access to investors. The winning projects will be able to profit from this infrastructure in order to accelerate their product development.

Several others are available on the Inartis Foundation Challenge platform.

5 projects will be selected for the acceleration.

The Challenge will be featured in multiple newspapers including the student newspapers on the campus (to increase the awareness of young professionals) additionally the Challenge will receive social media coverage and will be mentioned in the news of Republic of Innovation, the leading Life Science blog in the Health Valley.

Yes, Fondation Inartis provides such services as the access to the investors and have a number of venture capitalists in its network.

Currently no business idea competition addresses the patient care area. Additionally the Challenge aims to answer this issue with new solutions from a broad range of people, not with existing start-ups.

The quality of patient care in Switzerland is extremely high, however being in a hospital for a long time can be psychologically challenging and potentially even cause depression. Activities oriented to entertain and stimulate the patients can have q high impact on the recovery rate. Thus, our Challenge aims to improve the overall quality of patients care, and make the time in the hospital more pleasant for them to achieve a better and faster recovery.

The most likely outcome is the development of new technologies and activities improving the patient’s stay in the hospital.

We are accepting applications of young professionals and encourage students and employees of Universities and Research Centers in Switzerland to submit their ideas and projects to the Challenge.

Fondation Inartis is in a close contact and collaboration with multiple cantonal governmental organizations that support entrepreneurship. In case of interest they can support the promising projects.