Bayer Launches 2015 Grants4Apps Accelerator to Advance Digital Health Innovation

In today’s era of rapid development in the internet healthcare sector, accelerators and incubators have become commonplace. Pioneers such as Startup Health and Rock Health have already nurtured dozens of outstanding internet healthcare startups over the past few years.

Traditional pharmaceutical companies possess substantial financial and technical resources, but due to constraints such as their scale and institutional structures, they have lagged slightly in supporting companies in this field. Nevertheless, it is not too late for them to catch up now.

In August 2015, Bayer HealthCare, a global pharmaceutical giant headquartered in Berlin, Germany, launched its “2015 Grants4Apps Accelerator” program. The initiative selected five digital health startups worldwide to support the development of their business concepts and technologies. These companies operate in subfields including hormone testing, patient adherence, breathing patterns, clinical trials, and vitamin deficiency.

Today, these five digital health startups have officially joined the “Grants4Apps Accelerator” at Bayer Pharmaceuticals’ Berlin headquarters. Each company will receive up to €50,000 (more than RMB 300,000) in funding support, as well as mentorship from Bayer executives and other experts. Over the next four months, they will advance their respective projects within Bayer’s accelerator program.

“We are delighted to see the ‘2015 Grants4Apps Accelerator’ program gain widespread global acceptance, with this year’s number of applicants tripling compared to the same period last year,” said Johannes Schubmehl, Chief Information Officer of Bayer HealthCare. “Bayer’s ‘Accelerator’ program is designed to drive innovation in internet healthcare. We will make every effort to support the five selected internet healthcare startups in further advancing their innovative projects.”

Under the “2015 Grants4Apps Accelerator” program, Bayer received applications from more than 200 internet healthcare-related companies across 48 countries. The largest number of applicants came from Europe and the United States, but companies from Asia, particularly China, were also highly notable. This year, Bayer further encouraged its employees to submit their startup ideas. Senior executives at Bayer personally participated in reviewing these applications.Their evaluation criteria include the company’s maturity, existing product prototypes and team, as well as the alignment between the applicant and Bayer’s areas of interest.

The five startups selected for the “2015 Grants4Apps Accelerator” program hail from five different countries across three continents: Serona (formerly Hack My Hormones, Inc.) from the United States, MediKeep OU from Estonia, Sendinaden Limited from Bayer China’s internal entrepreneurship initiative, Viomedo UG from Germany, and Vitameter Inc. from Canada. Unlike in previous years, two of the five startups this year will have the opportunity to leverage Bayer HealthCare’s CoLaborator laboratory facilities in Berlin to further test the real-world feasibility of their concepts. Bayer HealthCare’s CoLaborator is a global research incubator that, in addition to providing ready-to-use proprietary laboratory and office infrastructure near Bayer’s sites in San Francisco and Berlin, offers young life sciences companies access to Bayer’s expertise and global research network.

★Serona

Serona generates and tracks hormonal data to advance precision medication. The Serona platform provides researchers and healthcare professionals with accurate, accessible hormone testing and data management. Currently, women’s healthcare often relies on a trial-and-error approach to determine treatment plans. In contrast, Serona enables personalized hormonal prescriptions for millions of women—addressing issues such as fertility solutions and menopausal symptoms—to deliver tailored solutions and track therapeutic insights over time. Founded in 2014 (formerly known as Hack My Hormones, Inc.), Serona was co-founded by Heather Bowerman, a biomedical engineer who graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University, and is a former McKinsey consultant and former Deputy Associate Director for Science and Technology Policy at the White House; and Brandy Houser, who holds a Ph.D. in Immunology from Harvard University and previously held senior leadership roles at Pfizer and Partners Healthcare System.

★MediKeep

An app designed specifically for users’ home medicine cabinets. It features an inventory option that allows users to view and list the expiration dates and remaining quantities of all medications in their cabinet by scanning barcodes or searching the database. MediKeep also serves as a medication reminder, enabling users to check the stock level of the relevant medication after each dosing notification. Its future development plans include providing home healthcare advice based on medication descriptions, issuing drug interaction alerts, offering simplified medication information sheets, and introducing options for logged-in users to track medication intake and symptoms. The app is available for download on both the iTunes and Google Play stores. The MediKeep OU team from Estonia includes two co-founders: Kerti Alev, Concept/Designer, and Allan Kandmaa, iOS Developer.

★Sendinaden

Sendinaden Limited specializes in 3D-printed smart wearable devices, helping urban residents cultivate healthy habits through flow-state learning and wellness. Aligning with emerging trends, the company’s offerings include wearables that leverage 3D printing to create customized, complex geometric structures, as well as solutions for flow-state learning and wellness. In Asia, urban dwellers are confronting challenging environmental pollution and stress.

Sendinaden’s inaugural product is the “Pattern Breathing Mask,” which improves user health by modifying breathing patterns. Custom-tailored for each individual, the mask is up to 95% locally 3D-printed. It filters air while simultaneously measuring the user’s respiration and providing real-time feedback. Breathing serves as a remote control for physical well-being; better breathing translates to a higher quality of life. Sendinaden is also exploring other customer needs, including the diagnosis and treatment of sleep apnea, as well as applications in drug delivery and pulmonary rehabilitation. The “Pattern Breathing Mask” will be available globally starting January 2016.

★Viomedo

In current standard medical practice, many patients with unmanageable or incurable diseases do not receive effective treatment. Consequently, therapies still under development become the only hope for these patients. However, most of them are unable to access these innovative treatment options. Viomedo UG is dedicated to providing these patients with opportunities to participate in clinical trials for such innovative therapies. Its online platform aggregates 2,000 clinical trials available to patients in Germany. Furthermore, it provides patients with information on participating in clinical trials as a therapeutic option. In this way, Viomedo enables today’s patients to potentially benefit from future medical technologies in advance.

★Vitameter

Many people in North America and Europe suffer from some form of vitamin deficiency. Unfortunately, many individuals are either unaware of their vitamin deficiencies or frequently take excessive or insufficient doses of nutritional supplements, with both excessive and inadequate vitamin levels being closely associated with disease.

Vitameter is a handheld device that analyzes users’ vitamin levels from a single drop of blood, offering a user experience similar to that of a glucose meter. Vitameter’s future development goals include expanding its capabilities to other biomarkers, providing users with quantitative insights into key health indicators to optimize their well-being. Headquartered in Waterloo, Canada, the company was co-founded by Nirushan Udayakumar, James MacLean, and Robert Green. James and Nirushan graduated from the University of Waterloo with degrees in Nanotechnology Engineering, while Robert holds a degree in Environment and Business from the same institution.

★ Bayer HealthCare’s “Grants4Apps Accelerator”

“Grants4Apps (G4A) Accelerator” is part of Bayer HealthCare’s open innovation initiative, aimed at creatively fostering an environment for digital innovation in the healthcare sector. Established in 2014, the “G4A Accelerator” provided dedicated office space at Bayer’s Berlin headquarters to five internet healthcare startups with innovative technological solutions. This program supports selected internet healthcare startups in further advancing their projects and business models. Each startup can receive funding of up to €50,000 and work from the “Grants4Apps Accelerator” offices for approximately 100 days. During this period, in addition to receiving intensive coaching from entrepreneurs outside of Bayer, the startups are mentored by experienced Bayer executives who provide guidance.

Compiled by Chen Xin | Edited by Mo Renying