Innovative health tech takes spotlight in crowdsourcing initiative

In a bid to support innovative digital health technology in Asia Pacific, global enterprise Bayer has reopened its call for submissions in its web-based crowdsourcing initiative Grant4Apps for this year.

Launched in 2016, Grant4Apps Singapore is an open innovation program that aimed to provide financial support to developers and startups for their software and hardware ideas that contribute to improving health outcomes or pharmaceutical processes. It was in partnership with the National University of Singapore.

Bayer said around 700 applications from over 70 countries have been collected to date, with 14 digital health startups selected to move into Bayer’s accelerator space in the past three batches. The closing date for submission is on March 31, 2017.

Winners of Grants4Apps Singapore may be admitted to the global Grants4Apps  program and the Grants4Apps® Accelerator and stand a chance to receive additional financial support of €50,000, mentorship by Bayer managers and an international network of external entrepreneurs as well as coworking space at the global headquarters of Bayer’s Pharmaceuticals Division in Berlin, Germany.

READ: Demand for innovative treatment options increasing, study says

Previous winners of Bayer’s global Grant4Apps from Asia Pacific came from China and Japan. The DPS-5 from Shanghai is an automated dispensing system that sorts daily medication based on individual prescriptions into 5Bay dose-packs that are easy to carry and use.

“5Bay’s technology also brings together three layers of management – gamification for self-management, missed dose reminder and integrative behavioral couples therapy (BCT) guidance for family support, and remote supervision and emergency assistance by designated healthcare professionals,” Bayer said.

Nanotis, meanwhile, is the winner of Grant4Apps Tokyo in 2016, which is basically a rapid and painless influenza diagnostic kit.

“The Nanotis microfluidic chip, accompanied by a smartphone application, can examine a variety of diseases and display its results within one minute,” Bayer said. “Patients need only place their mucus or saliva on a microfluidic chip, take a picture of it using a smartphone and let the app’s unique algorithm conduct its analysis on the sample.”

“Furthermore, by utilizing smartphones, Nanotis is able to use the data collected to apply epidemic prediction for regions around the world. Applying the same technology to a wide range of infections such as Zika, Norovirus, Ebola and HIV, the vision of Nanotis is to rid the world of infectious disease. In the future, Nanotis is also looking to expand its technology towards diagnosing other diseases such as cancer, measles, and dengue as well as agricultural and livestock diseases,” it added. YG/JE