Janssen has launched a €30,000 prize fund to spur healthcare innovation and help entrepreneurs develop technology that can have a transformational effect on healthcare.
For its Connected Health Challenge Europe the company is looking for technology solutions in three areas: personal health management, delivering homecare and maintaining medicine adherence.
The best ideas in these areas will share the prize fund and be offered mentorship from the Janssen Healthcare Innovation team to help advance the commercial development of their ideas.
But Janssen stressed that the fund and offer of help to Challenge winners will come with no strings attached and that finalists and winners will retain all rights to their ideas and solutions.
Marco Mohwinckel, a partner within Janssen Healthcare Innovation, Europe, said: “Entrepreneurs need capital, visibility and some mentorship, and they should be otherwise free in their pursuit of building businesses; so we do not attach any strings to the rewards and mentorship we can offer them.
“We look forward to reviewing the creative solutions submitted and to providing support for those ideas that have the greatest potential to solve healthcare challenges and improve patient care.”
The Challenge should help position Janssen within the health technology space and also give it access to a wider range of expertise as it looks to develop its own advances and solutions in healthcare.
Janssen Healthcare Innovation is an entrepreneurial team within Janssen’s R&D arm. It is tasked with collaborating on the development of products and services that can deliver high-quality, cost-effective healthcare.
One of its more recent efforts was the development of a mobile medication reminder service for US patients. The Care4Today programme offers a free, secure mobile app and website that allows users to set up tailored reminders that can be sent to iPhone, Android, Blackberry and other smartphones, as well as older ‘feature phones’.
