From innovative bone replacements to groundbreaking retinal therapies – Brabant is once again gaining international attention as a hotspot for medical innovation. This month, the Brabant Development Agency (BOM) kicked off the Regenerative Therapies Programme – BioMaterials Edition. Five promising European pre-startups began their journey to transform their life-changing technology into a successful business that makes a global impact on healthcare.
The selected startups are the result of an intensive selection from fourteen candidates from across Europe. They share the same mission: to accelerate medical innovation using advanced biomaterials. We took a look at the Smart BioMaterials Consortium (SBMC) in Eindhoven on the second day of the program and spoke with the participants.
“We believe that Brainport is the best place for our startup to establish,” says Rong Wang, from Iceland's InBorn BioMedical, which is developing a new type of bone replacement material that enables fractures to heal faster and prevents infections. "And BOM is an interesting partner for us, due to the network and the possibility of funding.” Want to know more about the impactful solutions, participants, and the program? Watch the video below. Text continues below video.
The bridge from idea to impact
The Regenerative Therapies Venture Building Programme – BioMaterials Edition is specifically developed to support young teams with great ambition in starting a company. Their groundbreaking, life-changing technologies can have a global impact on healthcare: but how do you transform this technology into a successful business? The venture building program helps them with this. Participants receive support in testing their idea, finding product-market fit, and preparing for an initial investment.
The program provides startups with direct access to experts, testing facilities, and investors. This allows them to further develop their innovation and bring it to market faster – leading to better treatments, shorter recovery times, and ultimately, a higher quality of life for patients.
Brabant offers everything medical startups need to grow – from knowledge institutions to investors and unique facilities like SBMC.
All ingredients for growth
The choice of Brabant as the location for this program is obvious, explains Stephan Hulsbergen (BOM), who developed the program: “Brabant offers everything for medical startups to grow – from knowledge institutions to investors and unique facilities like SBMC. BOM helps entrepreneurs from the earliest stage to international scaling – as a connector, guide, and investor.”
Brabant: the hotspot for biomaterials
That the program is not a one-time revival was already evident earlier this year during the Smart Biomaterials Hackathon. The winning team - The Neurons, with a smart biological cruciate implant that also stimulates nerve recovery - received a voucher of €10,000 to further develop their idea.
“Both the hackathon and this program demonstrate how strong this ecosystem is in connecting talent, knowledge, and capital,” said Stephan Hulsbergen of BOM. “These are not isolated initiatives, but building blocks of a much larger whole in which Brabant is developing into the European cradle for medical innovations with biomaterials.”
Ready to make an impact? This is your chance!
The next edition of the Regenerative Therapies Programme – BioMaterials Edition – will start in December. Do you have innovative ideas in regenerative therapies and are you ready to transform your technology into an investable enterprise at the heart of a vibrant ecosystem? Then this is your moment! Contact Stephan Hulsbergen.