How do the established industry stakeholders, as potential business partners, evaluate the findings from this year’s MEDICA App COMPETITION? “The finalists represented the most important trends in digital healthcare, such as digital basic care, digital therapy and clinical decision aids. We are interested in all of these areas and are committed to helping innovators to continue developing and advancing their individual projects so that the results can be extended to patients and care teams” states Oliver Gassner, Head of Digital Health Intelligence at Bayer G4A.

Pain and needle-free administration of medicine


Gassner also watched the finale of the HEALTHCARE INNOVATION WORLD CUP with great interest. This event was held on the previous day (11.18.) at MEDICA 2019. Here, innovative solutions from the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) took center stage. The victor was Medicsensors, a Spanish start-up company. Their representative, Alejandro Ruiz, showed the development work that had gone into a system for needle and pain-free administration of medicine in their product, Medicsen. This system is physically comprised of a smart patch that delivers the active agents via the skin. In this initial phase, the main focus of the development is diabetes applications. Ruiz comments: “Currently, we’re working with insulin. In the future, we want to be able to transport other, larger molecules into the body via the skin as well.” The fact that the molecule size that can be transmitted has a strict maximum and that the active agent cannot penetrate the skin passively are two limitations here. Apart from these issues, almost anything is possible. Their defined goal for 2023 is as follows: The smart patch needs to be able to deliver active agents automatically according to an algorithm or be manually activated by the user. An automated delivery of insulin would be very similar to providing an artificial pancreas for diabetics.

Second place was awarded to MJN SERAS, who also hailed from Spain. Their device was a wearable that is used to measure brain activity. This means that patients can be warned a few minutes before they have an epileptic seizure, for example. The results of the clinical studies for this year and 2020 are still pending. Once they are out, the system will be launched on the market. The application could be expanded for observation and therapy of conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, bipolar disorder and sleep apnea.

A German company took third place at the HEALTHCARE INNOVATION WORLD CUP too. Lukas Liedtke showcased heat it. This device combats the symptoms of itching, pain and swelling caused by insect bites or stings within a very short time. Dependent on the type of insect bite or sting and the patient’s level of sensitivity, the bite/sting area is heated for four to ten seconds. This inhibits the release of histamine, which causes itching. “We’re not the first to exploit this mechanism; however, we are the first to link it with a smartphone”, explained Liedtke. The device works with utmost precision for mosquito, wasp, bee and horsefly bites and stings.

Association Viewpoints Homepage