Jointly organized by EIT Health, EIT Raw Materials, and EIT Food, the Business Idea Competition helps to improve cross-sectoral innovation performance in EIT RIS countries along the following thematic areas: 1) Food, 2) Health, and 3) Raw Materials.
The program consisted on a 6 day Business Planning Bootcamp and 35 hours of mentoring by an expert in innovation and entrepreneurship, which has provided Dr. Juan Francisco Delgado and Xavier Gallego with the tools to get started on building a business. Taby Diagnostics, a project aimed at providing society with a highly sensitive blood test to early diagnosis of liver cancer, was selected to participate in the competition based on the strength of its entrepreneurial idea, its impact on the sector, and its growth potential. The project is based on a technology, developed at Parc Taulí University Hospital, that modifies the conformation of tumor associated antigens to facilitate their recognition by autoantibodies. The conformational change makes these antigens suitable to be used as a very sensitive and reliable tool to early diagnose several types of cancer.
The final was held in Budapest on November 16th, and consisted on a pitch elevator in front of investors, corporate partners, representatives of the Government, EU representatives, EIT and partners of EIT Health, EIT Food, EIT Raw Materials. The jury panel was composed of 4 international expert members who selected Taby Diagnostics to be awarded with the 3rd prize. The prize of € 5,000 will be used to further validate the technology.
Dr. Juan Francisco Delgado and Xavier Gallego consider that winning this competition, not only contributes to fundraise the project, but to obtain international recognition and to give visibility to the project and Institution.
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