#StartUp News: startup health report 3Q 2014

KEY FINDINGS:

• global innovations in digitalHealth grow ; More than 5.000 startups around the world are developing new solutions in digital health.
• patients are bocoming more empowered. More and more . "Consumerism" of health tracking grows
• Wearables are becoming mainstream, but we are not there yet.
• IoT is picking up speed.

Research :Helfen Fruchtfliegen bald bei der Krebsdiagnose?

Handelsblatt, 03.11.2014, 06:00 Uhr

Drosophila melanogaster: 

Fruchtfliegen können Krebszellen 

anhand des Geruchs erkennen.  

Quelle: dpa

Ohne Training können die Insekten Hunderte chemische Substanzen differenzieren. Selbst verschiedene Untergruppen von Krebszellen identifizieren sie anhand des Geruchs. Forscher wollen diese Fähigkeit nutzen.

Den empfindlichen Geruchssinn von Tieren hat sich der Mensch schon in den unterschiedlichsten Fällen zunutze gemacht. Bekannteste Beispiele sind wohl Hunde, die Drogen erschnüffeln oder Fährten aufnehmen können. Und Ratten werden seit längerem darauf gedrillt, Alarm zu schlagen, sobald sie den Sprengstoff TNT riechen. Die possierlichen Nager werden dann in der Minenräumung eingesetzt. Sie erschnüffeln die explosive Mischung, lösen aber aufgrund ihres geringen Gewichts die Landminen nicht aus.

Selbst die Medizin nutzt bereits die olfaktorischen Fähigkeiten von Tieren. So gibt es Hunde, die anhand des sich verändernden Körpergeruchs Diabetiker warnen, wenn eine Unterzuckerung droht. Und selbst auf das Erschnüffeln von Lungenkrebs in der Atemluft von Probanden wurden Hunde schon erfolgreich gedrillt. Ihre Trefferquote lag bei 72 Prozent – erstaunlich hoch, wenn man bedenkt, dass es bisher noch keine verlässliche Früherkennung für Lungenkrebs gibt.
Doch ein Problem all dieser Einsatzmöglichkeiten bleibt: Die Tiere müssen erst mühsam darauf trainiert werden, beim Duft bestimmter Stoffe entsprechend Alarm zu schlagen. Wie einfach wäre es dagegen, den Geruchssinn als Diagnoseapparat ohne jedes Training zu nutzen? Genau das ist Forschern jetzt mit der Fruchtfliege gelungen.
Denn die Insekten mit dem lateinischen Namen Drosophila melanogaster haben ein geradezu phänomenales Rezeptorensystem, das Hunderte chemische Substanzen differenzieren kann – und das ganz automatisch. Nun haben Forscher nachgewiesen, dass Fruchtfliegen über ihren Geruchssinn Krebszellen von gesunden Zellen unterscheiden können. Der Mechanismus: An die Rezeptorneuronen der Fruchtfliege binden sich einzelne Duftmoleküle und aktivieren bestimmte Neuronen. Diese wiederum wurden von den Forschern der Universitäten Konstanz und La Sapienza in Rom genetisch so verändert, dass sie bei Aktivität fluoreszieren, also leuchten.

Bei den Versuchen wurden fünf unterschiedliche Brustkrebslinien verwendet und im Vergleich zu gesunden Zellen überprüft. „Da nicht nur kranke und gesunde Zellen unterschieden werden können, sondern auch Untergruppen innerhalb der Krebszellen erkennbar waren, scheinen über die Antenne der Drosophila sogar verschiedene Brustkrebszellarten differenzierbar zu sein“, sagt Alja Lüdke, Wissenschaftlerin an der Universität Konstanz.

Die Forscher hoffen, mit Hilfe dieser neuen Erkenntnisse irgendwann einen Sensor bauen zu können, der die Diagnose von Krebs oder anderen Krankheiten schnell und zuverlässig ermöglicht. Zwar arbeitet die Forschung seit mehr als 20 Jahren an der Entwicklung sogenannter elektronischer Nasen, mit deren Hilfe die Ausatemluft von Kranken untersucht werden kann und die Rückschlüsse auf Erkrankungen ermöglichen. Aber all diese Geräte sind längst nicht so gut wie der Geruchssinn der Tiere.
Und noch einen weiteren Vorteil hätten diese neuen Techniken. Denn bisher sind Diagnoseverfahren zur Früherkennung, wenn sie denn überhaupt existieren, häufig mit nicht ganz ungefährlichen Eingriffen verbunden. So werden Gewebeproben entnommen, Minikameras in den Organismus eingeführt oder etwa Katheder durch Blutgefäße geführt. Solche Eingriffe könnten durch die Diagnose aus der Atemluft oder aus einzelnen Zellen weitestgehend entfallen.

Science4Life macht Gründen leicht - Ab sofort startet der deutschlandweite Businessplan-Wettbewerb

Service health care : 

Für Naturwissenschaftler gibt es viele Möglichkeiten, sich beruflich zu verwirklichen. Wer mit dem Gedanken spielt, sich selbstständig zu machen, ist bei der Gründerinitiative Science4Life e.V. richtig. Science4Life unterstützt seit Jahren erfolgreich angehende Gründer aus den Life Sciences und der Chemie

Davon profitieren können ab sofort wieder Ideenträger aus den Bereichen Agrarwissenschaft, Biotechnologie, Chemie, Gesundheitswesen, Erneuerbare Energien, Materialwissenschaft, Medizintechnik, Nanotechnologie, Pharma und Umwelttechnologie.

Der Einstieg in den Wettbewerb ist in jeder Phase möglich. Weitere Informationen zur Teilnahme am Science4Life Venture Cup gibt es unter: www.science4life.de.
> Download als PDF 

Termine der 17. Wettbewerbsrunde auf einen Blick:
24.10.2014 Einsendeschluss Ideenphase
16.01.2015 Einsendeschluss Konzeptphase
12.03.2015 Konzeptprämierung
08.05.2015 Einsendeschluss Businessplanphase
13.07.2015 Abschlussprämierung

Kontakt:
Geschäftsstelle des Science4Life e.V., Industriepark Höchst, Gebäude H 831, 65926 Frankfurt,
Tel.: 069 / 30 55 50 50, Fax: 069 / 30 52 70 21, E-Mail: info@science4life.de

European Health Award 2014: Six Projects Shortlisted

Tuesday, 02 September 2014

1 - 3 October 2014, Bad Hofgastein, Austria.
 

Six cutting-edge projects are in the running for the prestigious €10,000 European Health Award 2014, sponsored by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health and FOPI, which brings together Austria's research-based pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The winner will be chosen by a panel of leading health experts, and announced during the 17th EHFG Conference, being held in the Gastein Valley.

The 2014 short-list in detail

1. ITAREPS (Information Technology Aided Relapse Prevention Programme in Schizophrenia)
https://www.itareps.com

The ITAREPS system (Information Technology Aided Relapse Prevention Programme in Schizophrenia) represents a mobile phone-based e-Health solution for weekly remote patient monitoring and disease management in schizophrenia and psychotic disorders in general. ITAREPS provides health professionals with home telemonitoring via a PC-to-phone SMS platform that identifies prodromal symptoms of relapse, to enable early intervention and prevent hospitalisations. The participants of the programme are patients and their family members. The programme was developed by the Prague Psychiatric Centre in 2005. Based on available evidence, ITAREPS is capable of reducing the risk of rehospitalisation down to one-fifth.

Participating countries: Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Japan.

2. SALUS (Scalable, Standard based Interoperability Framework for Sustainable Pro-active Post Market Safety Studies)
http://www.salusproject.eu

The main aim of SALUS is to complement on-going medical drug safety studies through a scalable and standard based interoperability framework which specially focuses on postmarketingpharmacovigilance activities. Post-marketing pharmacovigilance can be defined as the science of detecting, assessing, understanding, and preventing adverse effects of drugs or other drug related problems once the drug is on market. The SALUS project fosters the integration of clinical care information from electronic health records (EHRs) into clinical research systems to enable proactive post-marketing safety studies for early detection of potential safety issues.

Participating countries: Italy and Germany and partners from Switzerland, France, Sweden, Belgium, The Netherlands and Turkey.

3. ExplainTB
http://explaintb.org

ExplainTB is a crowd charity project that offers free educational videos in several languages at the point of care: more than 300 volunteers worldwide contributed content, translations, proof-readings, voice-overs or acted as doctors in the films. The app allows the display of movies and written information in about 28 languages. The audio-visual content also teaches populations that are out of reach for print material. ExplainTB helps the healthcare worker to overcome the language barrier, allows patients to learn about their disease in their mother tongue and provides relatives with essential information about prevention of transmission. Furthermore, ExplainTB allows governments to publish national guidelines and country-specific information on a mobile point-of-care platform. Access to all videos can be gained via an app or by scanning a QR code from a poster. The posters are available on www.explaintb.org. The website allows the creation of bi-lingual handouts with individually tailored written information. Available since November 2013, ExplainTB has registered access to its website from over 80 countries. More than 2500 regular users access the information.

Participating countries: Not applicable, videos in 16 languages, written material in 33 languages, 12000 visitors registered from over 80 countries.

4. EpiSouth-plus Project
http://www.episouthnetwork.org

The EpiSouth-plus Project aimed at increasing health security in the Mediterranean Area and Balkans by enhancing preparedness to threats, which can affect health security, and to bio-security risks at national/regional levels in the framework of International Health Regulation implementation. Building upon the Network of 27 EU and non-EU Countries established by the previous project EpiSouth (2006-2010), the whole initiative has lasted more than seven years (2006-2014). The EpiSouth plus project has strengthened countries' capacity to cope with health threats through concerted and coordinated capacity building activities, including the establishment of a Mediterranean Regional Laboratories network; promotion of common procedures in interoperable Generic Preparedness and Risk management among the countries involved in the Network; enhancement of Mediterranean Early Warning Systems (EWS) allowing alerts and Epidemic Intelligence (EI) information sharing among EpiSouth countries and developing interoperability with other Early Warning Systems, including the European EWRS. Besides several trainings and workshops for epidemiologists and lab staff, among the main outcomes of the project have been guidelines for the establishment of lab networks and a tool for the development or the upgrading of National Generic Emergency Preparedness Plans (EPREP).

Participating countries: Bulgaria, Cyprus,Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Romania, Slovenia, Spain plus 17 non-EU MS of the Mediterranean Area and South-East Europe (Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, FYROM, Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Montenegro, Palestine, Serbia, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey).

5. Euro-Peristat
http://www.europeristat.com

The Euro-Peristat project's aim is to develop a high quality, innovative, internationally recognized and sustainable European perinatal health information system, producing data and analysis on a regular basis for use by stakeholders including clinicians (obstetricians, neonatologists, midwives, and neonatal nurses), policy makers in health ministries, maternal and child protection offices, and insurance and quality assurance agencies as well as pregnant women and their families. The project began as part of the EU's Health Monitoring Programme and relies on an active network of European perinatal health professionals (clinicians, epidemiologists, and statisticians). Euro-Peristat's data serve as evidence for key stakeholders making decisions about mothers and babies´ health in Europe. Each of their reports has been downloaded over 3000 times and in a web evaluation of 100 high-level stakeholders, 80% of respondents rated their publications very useful for their work. Over 200 news articles have been published on their results which have generated multiple debates about care provision to mothers and children.

Participating countries: Twenty-nine countries currently participate in Euro-Peristat, including the 26 EU member states and Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland.

6. EUTrigTreat
http://www.eutrigtreat.eu

Electrical heart disease leading to arrhythmias represents a major public health issue because it increases the risk for sudden cardiac death (SCD). Current SCD prevention strategies are not directed at the underlying risk mechanisms. The EUTrigTreat project elucidates molecular and environmental mechanisms, which underlie life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias, and how genes and external factors modulate and initiate catastrophic electrical abnormalities in the heart. Improved understanding of key arrhythmia mechanisms enables EUTrigTreat investigators to develop mechanism-targeted diagnostic and therapeutic approaches including novel drug and device therapies. These important objectives are investigated by a multidisciplinary research team including clinical and basic scientists together with small-to-medium enterprises, and through a coordinated large-scale collaborative excellence project.

Participating countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Switzerland, U.K. and USA

Source : eHealthNews.eu    

Nielsen: 46 million people used fitness apps in January

Market/ e-health / personal health records


Comments: US market; Shift - more extension -  in user age!

Nielsen: 46 million people used fitness apps in January

By: Aditi Pai | Apr 17, 2014 

Almost one-third of US smartphone owners, which is about 46 million unique people, used apps from the fitness and health category in January 2014, according to a report from Nielsen’s Mobile NetView 3.0 software, which is on-device software installed onto iOS and Android smartphones with permission from survey participants. Approximately 5,000 panelists aged 18 and over participated in this report.
The 46 million users accessed the apps, on average, 16 times per month and used for close to an hour.
The number of smartphone users that accessed fitness apps in January 2014 jumped 18 percent year over year. Nielsen said popular apps that connect to wearable devices include Fitbit’s app, which has 3.3 million users, and Nike+Running, which has 0.8 million users. Nielsen also included Samsung’s S Health app, which has 3 million users, in this category although when the survey was conducted in January, before Gear Fit launched, there were no wearable devices that connected with the S Health app in the US.

The most popular standalone wellness apps used in January 2014, which Nielsen said varied based on the consumer’s wellness goals, were Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker by MyFitnessPal, which had 8.7 million users, Nexercise, which had 3 million users and Runkeeper, which had 2.1 million users that month, according to the research firm. While Nielsen pointed out in its last survey that half of wearable owners were in the 18 to 34 age range, the majority of consumers using MyFitnessPal are over the age of 35.
Additionally, more women than men are using wellness apps. Forty four percent of people aged 30 to 39 use health apps and 60 percent of that group consists of women. The last survey also showed that men and women were equally likely to own wearable devices, but this report found women used Fitbit’s app 29 times per month, while men used the app 16 times per month. As this survey noted that more women use apps than men and more men use dedicated devices, that might explain the larger percent of women using Fitbit’s app. The month this data was recorded, January 2014, Fitbit released a passive tracking feature on its app so that the app could be used independently of the device.
Last week, another survey, this one of 471 people, from Nielsen found that only 15 percent of consumers use a nutrition-tracking website or mobile app to stay healthy. Additionally, 13 percent of consumers use a fitness game on a mobile devices or game console to stay in shape. Social interaction is a big motivator for consumers who want to get healthy — 49 percent of respondents said their family and friends were the most helpful for staying motivated. This could explain why the social aspect of health programs such as Weight Watchers are more popular than other features.

3D Printing market for Healthcare will reach $4043m in 2018, predicts new study

Market/ 3D Printing health care

Comments:  Marketsegments  are ..

 Scaffolding (Dental products, Medical implants )

Bioprinted human tissues

Medical devices

A new report by visiongain forecasts the world market for 3D printing in the healthcare industry will be worth $4043m in 2018. That medical market generated $1,264m in 2013, according to 3D Printing for Healthcare: R&D, Industry and Market 2014-2024, published in January 2014. Visiongain is a business information provider based in London, UK.

Visiongain forecasts the overall market for 3D printing (additive manufacturing) in the healthcare industry will expand rapidly from 2014. That multidimensional printing offers advantages over traditional manufacturing methods as it facilitates the production of highly specific complex geometries and surfaces. It is suited to the production of high value, low volume products. As a result, those printers give methods of synthesis suited to manufacturing products for the healthcare industry, where the demand for high quality, patient specific products is increasing, particularly in orthopaedics.

Jennifer Taylor, a pharmaceutical industry analyst in visiongain, said: “As 3D printing technology has developed and become more widespread, it has been used for an increasing number of applications in the healthcare industry. It is now an established manufacturing method in the formation of prototypes, medical models and dental products. More recently, the technology has been employed in the production of patient-specific orthopaedic and cranio-maxillofacial implants, a number of which have already received regulatory approval in the US and EU. More are under review. These implants apparently not only perform better, but their use results in cost savings derived from reduced surgery times. Companies in the field are beginning to enter into collaboration agreements with the industry-leading orthopaedic device manufacturers, which will drive market penetration of these 3D printed implants. It is expansion in this application that will be the main driver of growth during our forecast period 2014-2024.

“Technological advances in this dynamic industry are ever ongoing and applications of additive manufacturing in healthcare are expanding. An area of particular activity is that of bioprinting; there are a number of research groups and start-up companies working in this field. Bioprinted tissue will become commercially available for both drug development and therapeutic purposes during our forecast period, and will become an important subsector of the 3D printed products industry.”

Visiongain’s new report shows revenue forecasts to 2024 at world market and submarket level. It forecasts the world-level submarkets of 3D printing technology and that of printed products for medicine. The data gives a breakdown of the 3D printed products market into the following subsectors:

Reprint Forbes, 22/08/13

Unterschätze Volkskrankheit : Kopfschmerzen

Health and Wellness / Physische Gesundheit

 Das Präparat ANTIMIGREN^® enthält die homöopathisch aufbereiteten Arzneipflanzen aus Iris versicolor (Buntfarbige Schwertlilie), Gelsemium sempervirens (Wilder Jasmin), Cyclamen europaeum (Alpenveilchen), Paris quadrifolia (Einbeere) und Asarum europaeum (Haselwurz).