The Patient Quality of Life Challenge announced its finalists

Supported by Debiopharm, La-Solution.ch and the Inartis Foundation, the aim of this award is to support a selection of projects over a 4-month period to enable prototypes to be developed and produced. At the end of the year, the winner (or co-winners) whose prototype is judged to be the best will receive a prize of CHF 25’000, as well as 12 months’ strategic support.

For the ninth year running, the Patient Quality of Life Challenge has mobilised a large number of entrepreneurs for its call for projects. Aware of the importance of creativity and entrepreneurship, through various workshops, meetings and discussions, project leaders submitted their ideas in large numbers. They covered the entire health and social spectrum, including digital health, patient autonomy, diagnosis, therapy and rehabilitation.

“The Patient Quality of Life Challenge is an unrivalled way of bringing out new, simple ideas to support patients through their illness and offer them quality of life and autonomy,” explains Thierry Mauvernay, Chairman and Managing Director of Debiopharm. “It’s always exciting to see just how rich our region is in terms of creativity and diversity, and to know that several of the ideas we supported up to that point have since been put into practice. A sign that they were concrete, practical and met real needs”.

The applications were analysed by a multidisciplinary jury comprising David Deperthes, Entrepreneurial Consultant, Chairman of the jury, Pierre-Luc Maillefer, Medical Device Engineer, Catherine Djaouti, Co-founder of Amad and COO of La-Solution.ch, Michèle Joanisse, Director of the CHUV Foundation, Pietro Scalfaro, Paediatrician, biotech entrepreneur, Gaëtan Cherix, Director of the HES-SO Valais-Wallis School of Engineering and Thierry Vial, Editor-in-Chief of PME.

The 5 projects selected at the end of the first stage will have 4 months to set up a prototype in order to try to convince the jury again, at the end of this period, of the relevance and viability of their concept. The winning project will be honoured at a ceremony at the end of 2024.

The projects selected for the 2024 edition are as follows:

ScanFreezer, led by Amirhossein Sanaat – Geneva
Motion correction is essential for all medical imaging modalities in order to obtain accurate images. This is particularly important for children (who may have difficulty keeping still) and the elderly (who may have involuntary movements). The innovative ScanFreezer technology constantly monitors the patient’s movements and applies corrections in real time, guaranteeing the high quality of the images acquired.

Mind VR, led by Patricia Gall – Zurich
Mind VR creates cutting-edge virtual reality experiences that enable children to acquire the skills they need to combat bullying, promoting resilience and empathy in supportive learning environments.

My Physio, led by Colin Schmidt – Lausanne
Physiotherapists often give their patients a list of exercises to do, sometimes with a piece of paper detailing the gesture or gestures. Initially, patients are motivated and do the exercises correctly, but over time they lose motivation. Worse still, some do the exercises incorrectly, at the risk of creating secondary disorders. My Physio is a mobile application that helps patients with their rehabilitation.

Pressmap, led by Quentin Praz and Spiros Schoinas – Geneva
Hallux valgus, also known as “bunion”, is a common deformity of the forefoot that affects one adult in four and a third of the elderly. This condition destabilises the mechanical balance of the foot, causing pain under the forefoot, disrupting walking and increasing the risk of falls. Even today, a third of patients are dissatisfied with surgical treatment. The Pressmap project proposes an innovative method for accurately assessing podal imbalance and personalising patient treatment for greater efficiency.

Vulgaroo, powered by Christophe Lelong – Bordeaux, France
Billions of medical reports are printed and shared every year, but… patients generally don’t understand them. Doctors don’t have the time to explain them, and laboratories and hospitals are receiving more and more requests for clarification. Vulgaroo uses AI to simplify medical reports and make them understandable to everyone.

Source: press release