Upper Austria's medical technology market receives 5 million euros

On June 16, 2021, a press conference was held at the Open Innovation Center at Johannes Kepler University Linz on the topic of a 5-million-euros research subvention for the promising medical technology market of Upper Austria. Markus Achleitner, Upper Austria's Economic and Research Council, Henrietta Egerth, Ph.D., Managing Director of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG, and Jama Nateqi, founder and CEO of Symptoma GmbH and member of the advisory board of the business network MedTech Cluster, were present among others.

It has been announced that Upper Austria is to become a technological role model and center for medical technology. To this end, the federal state will receive funding worth several million euros.

"Systems and technologies for people" is one of the four focal points of the economic and research strategy #upperVISION2030. It is intended to help ensure that new digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and assistive systems are put to use - especially in the healthcare sector. "From a medical and economic perspective, the digitalization of healthcare is a great opportunity. On the one hand, it can be used to further optimize patient care, and on the other hand, there are great opportunities in the growing market of medical technology, especially for Upper Austria as a business location.

With our new call for funding 'Digital Health - The Digital Patient Journey', companies and research institutions in Upper Austria will receive a turbo funding of almost 5 million euros for the development of future projects. This is another milestone on Upper Austria's way to becoming a hotspot in medical technology," says Markus Achleitner. Upper Austria thus wants to shape the future of the healthcare system accelerating digitalization and invites providers of innovative solutions to present their ideas so that they can be further developed and put to good use.

The recent call for funding is a cooperative research and development project focusing on digital patient care and safety, as well as prevention/diagnosis and therapy/follow-up care. On ecall.ffg.at, interested companies and research institutions can apply for funding of between 100,000 and 600,000 euros from June 17 to October 29, 2021, at 12 p.m. The funding rate is a maximum of 60 percent, and funding is granted for a maximum period of 36 months. In total, the state of Upper Austria is providing a sum of 4.76 million euros for this project.

The corona crisis has taken its toll on the Austrian healthcare system. So far, difficulties have been managed well, but the pandemic has also shown that improvements are urgently needed. Telemedicine became more important, and it suddenly became essential for physicians, pharmaceutical companies, and research institutions to stay digitally connected. This clearly demonstrated that the implementation of respective solutions must be actively pursued. "[...] We are confronted with novel challenges that demand an interplay of know-how, research and entrepreneurial spirit," emphasizes Markus Achleitner, Regional Minister for Economics and Research.

The new funding call "Digital Health - The Digital Patient Journey" is intended to ensure that the Austrian healthcare system meets the new requirements in order to improve digital care and prevention or diagnosis as well as therapy and aftercare. This will need solutions that collect, process, and evaluate patient data - and people who accept this new type of healthcare. Naturally, issues such as data protection and control over personal data also become enormously important. This will be one of the greatest challenges for future healthcare: to seize the abundant opportunities of digitalization in a way that makes patients feel comfortable and embrace the change.

Digitalization could save the Austrian healthcare system up to 4.7 billion euros every year, which equals about 14 percent of annual healthcare costs. This was the conclusion of a study by McKinsey & Company, published in April 2021 and titled "Digitalization in healthcare: the 4.7 billion euro opportunity for Austria".

According to the study, the greatest benefits will come from online interactions between doctors and patients as well as digital data processing such as standardized electronic patient records and e-prescriptions or e-medication. To effectively and sustainably change the healthcare system, modern solutions are urgently needed, but they will also have to find acceptance among patients.

Furthermore, Markus Achleitner emphasizes that Upper Austria has all it takes to stand up to international comparison: "The foundation of a successful research and technology location is science, innovation and research-active companies. Upper Austria can offer all of that. We thus have the optimal framework conditions and the innovative strength and mindset to not only keep up with international competition, but to be right at the forefront. Our call for funding will give these activities an additional boost," explains Achleitner.

Digital health is one of the main topics of the Medical Technology Cluster (MTC) of Business Upper Austria. Together with research and healthcare institutions, the network aims to highlight the importance of medical technology in Upper Austria and promote the industry. This is to be achieved through joint cooperation projects and initiatives. Another part of the Digital Health Call is a series of events on qualification measures that provides additional support to companies and research institutions in their application process. The events are financed by the Digitalization flagship initiative.

As early as June 17, interested companies and research institutions can find out about the framework conditions and funding quotas at the online launch of the Digital Health Call. At the matchmaking event on July 1, the MedTech Cluster will also network potential project partners. "Medical and healthcare technologies are a strong growth market. In the successful interplay of medicine, research, and business, Upper Austria can exploit this locational advantage in the digital competition for the future," reiterates Markus Achleitner, Economic Affairs and Research Provincial Councilor.

The FFG handles the call for funding on behalf of the state of Upper Austria. Not only the FFG's many years of expertise make it an important cooperation partner, but also its submission tools and competent advice, as well as their support for applicants. End users and stakeholders such as hospitals, charity organizations or care facilities are involved in the process as early as possible to increase the chances of a successful implementation of the innovations. The companies and facilities are supported throughout the entire development cycle. Around 80 percent of the applicants are small, young, and innovative companies. Their modern approaches and ideas are promising, but usually involve long development periods, high costs, and regulatory requirements. "An internationally recognized healthcare location is characterized not only by excellent research and development, but also by state-of-the-art medical infrastructure. Upper Austria is on the right track. As the managing director of the FFG, I am pleased that our targeted research funding and networking of relevant stakeholders can provide an important impetus for the country on the path to cutting-edge medicine," says Dr. Egerth.

Digital tools are a real "gamechanger" in both, medical and care sectors. Artificial intelligence plays a particular role: it enables earlier, more reliable disease detection, for instance, and is therefore becoming increasingly important in the diagnostic process and medical decision-making. "AI systems will not replace doctors but relieve them so that they have more time for what patients often miss today: conversation, empathy, humanity," Dr. Egerth comments.

Misdiagnosis still represents a "blind spot" in medicine and costs around 1.5 million lives every year – a problem that Symptoma, an Austrian SME founded in 2006, aims to tackle at its root. The health assistant of the same name uses artificial intelligence to support people on their way to the correct diagnosis and treatment. Doctors and patients enter symptoms into the chatbot, answer a few questions, and receive a list of possible causes - sorted by probability. Symptoma is available to doctors, patients, hospitals, governments, and companies in the MedTech, pharmaceutical, or insurance industry - in 100 countries and in 36 languages. "Our vision is to enable precision medicine. Every patient deserves the right diagnosis and treatment," emphasizes CEO Jama Nateqi, who is also an advisory board member of the Medical Technology cluster.

To achieve this vision, Symptoma has established the largest disease database in the world: For each search entry, 20,000 diseases and billions of symptom associations and risk factors are taken into account. This enables Symptoma to uncover even extremely rare diseases that are otherwise difficult to diagnose. The innovative tool is based on 15 years of research and development by medical doctors and data scientists. The high diagnostic accuracy of over 96 percent has been demonstrated and published in internal, external, and peer-reviewed studies, including Pfizer and Nature. In a global comparison of up to 104 solutions, Symptoma ranked first place by far. Symptoma now has 10 million users a month, making it the most used symptom checker. These figures also provide evidence for the high demand for supportive digital tools.

"Digital medicine and artificial intelligence prepare the scientific basis for precision medicine. In this context, it is essential to enable patients to live long and healthy lives while protecting their privacy," says Jama Nateqi. The company does not place third-party cookies, does not ask for names or email addresses, and even anonymizes the users' IP addresses. Personal data is thus used solely for symptom testing.

The tool’s potential has also already been recognized by the European Commission and the Austrian government, who commissioned Symptoma to provide their chatbot for the people. Since 2020, Symptoma's digital COVID-19 solution has been relieving the burden on the City of Vienna's health hotline, ensuring that limited resources such as PCR tests are allocated to citizens at the highest risk. That way, the digital health assistant is helping to effectively contain the pandemic.

Symptoma has also been able to gain significant new information on previously unidentified signs of COVID-19 and scientifically published it together with the City of Vienna. The data obtained through the digital tool enable a better understanding of the disease and allow earlier care for those affected. In addition, Symptoma was even able to make reliable predictions five days in advance about the course of the pandemic in the respective region, allowing appropriate recommendations for action to be derived. According to the McKinsey study, Symptoma can contribute to saving 3 billion euros in healthcare costs in Austria every year.

Symptoma collaborates with over 63 partners around the world on more than 40 research projects, including leading universities and research institutions. The goal: further advance medical decision support. Symptoma has now been awarded 46 times for its outstanding work, such as by the European Commission in 2017 as one of the best 50 companies in the EU. The company's development has been significantly supported and accompanied by the FFG (since 2007), the MedTech Cluster (since 2012), and the Upper Austrian state government (since 2015).

Image: Province of Upper Austria/Gerstmair