Hevelion, IRIS and Kymansis awarded by the FIT

The Fondation pour l’Innovation Technologique awards three life sciences projects from CHUV and EPFL: Hevelion from UNIL-CHUV, and IRIS and Kymansis from EPFL. They received CHF 100’000 Tech Grants to continue developing their technologies.

Hevelion: spatial omics for new targeted therapies

Hevelion is developing an AI-powered software platform to accelerate spatial biomarker discovery for complex diseases, such as cancer, neurodegenerative disorders and autoimmune diseases. Currently, researchers struggle to identify robust spatial biomarkers for targeted therapies due to limited ability to systematically analyse cellular interactions across large datasets. With its comprehensive platform for storing, visualizing, annotating, and sharing spatial omics data, Hevelion aims to empower researchers and pharmaceutical companies to create diagnostics and therapies based on these cellular interactions. Stemming out of UNIL-CHUV, Hevelion collaborates closely with Prof. Giovanni Ciriello, head of the Computational Systems Oncology Lab and director of the Department of Computational Biology. Hevelion will use its FIT-InnoTREK grant to validate its value proposition and market fit through three pilot projects.

Kymansis – a non-invasive wearable for cardiovascular health monitoring

`Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death globally, taking an estimated 18 million lives each year. CVDs are a group of disorders impacting the heart and blood vessels. Identifying those at highest risk of CVDs quickly is paramount in preventing premature death. For the most part, diagnosis of CVDs still relies on lengthy or invasive procedures, bulky equipment, and specialised expertise. As a result, millions of people go undiagnosed each year. Blood pressure is the most widely-used non-invasive marker – but on its own, it cannot provide a full picture of cardiovascular health. Kymansis, a startup based at EPFL in Professor Nikolaos Sterfiopulos’ Laboratory of Hemodynamics and Cardiovascular Technology, has developed a non-invasive, cuffless wearable that continuously monitors cardiovascular health with clinical-grade accuracy. Worn on the wrist like a bracelet, it uses a network of pressure sensors positioned over the radial artery. The collected data is processed by advanced AI models to estimate three critical indicators—blood pressure, arterial stiffness, and cardiac output—providing clinicians with precise, realtime insights throughout the day. The team will use their FIT-Innogrant to finalise the design and start the clinical validation process.

IRIS – facilitating the development of biologics

Biologics – drugs produced from living cells – are transforming medicine and opening up many new therapeutic possibilities. However, manufacturing them is slow, expensive, and often inefficient. Current techniques do not enable to determine cell productivity based on cell morphology alone. This makes it time-consuming and expensive to select the best-performing cells, optimize bioreactor process or fine-tune production. IRIS, a startup based at EPFL in Professor Bart Deplancke’s Laboratory of Systems Biology and Genetics, has developed a new technology combining high-resolution imaging with molecular profiling. This means teams can interpret cell function from shape alone. Through microfluidics and AI-driven analysis, they can identify highperforming cell clones, speed up production, and predict outcomes from cell images alone in real-time. With the support of the FIT-Innogrant, the team will validate the technology with key partners in biologics manufacture.

➡️ Source: Press Release FIT | 📸 FIT