Bayer AG enters the healthcare accelerator game (DE)

Bayer HealthCare AG’s Grants4Apps program announced its support of five startups that, in their words, will support improved outcomes or pharmaceutical processes. Unlike companies like GE or Pfizer, Bayer is outright granting a substantial amount of cash to each–€ 50,000–and offering space plus 3 1/2 months of mentoring in their Berlin HQ in return for the usual small equity stake. Of 70 applications, five were granted to European companies which will have their Demo Day on 1 December:

  • Cortrium:  their C3 device is a state-of-the-art wearable tech sensor for clinical-quality hospital wireless monitoring of health data including electrocardiogram (ECG), body surface temperature, respiratory rate, and body posture/physical activity. Blood oxygen and blood pressure to come in 2015. (Denmark, spun off from Nokia R&D)
  • PharmAssistantself-management tool for chronic disease patients, consisting of a smart pill container and a remote cloud-based monitoring service (Portugal) (more…)