Inventors for Health (pilot program)

Inventors for Health are entrepreneurial individuals who have innovative ideas for inventions in life sciences and medicine and pursue these ideas individually or in small teams. Inventors can basically be clinically active people of all career levels holding a university degree and working at the Berlin Institute for Health, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin or the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine. The program is also open to non-clinically active personnel, especially technical or administrative staff, provided that their idea is based on inventions in the field of life sciences and medicine.

All in all, the Inventors for Health program focuses on an early stage of the innovation process and promotes in particular the (1) identification and elaboration of an idea, (2) entrepreneurial abilities of the inventors, (3) prototype development with progressive market orientation; and (4) preparatory measures for later commercialization, e.g. in connection with spin-offs or licensing agreements. The overarching objective of the funding is to improve and speed up the translation of technological potential of life sciences research into tangible products and services of medical benefit.

The Inventors for Health program, unlike existing innovation programs with strong focus on projects, is designed to primarily fund individuals. The funding consists of up to € 100,000 each for the exemption of up to 50 % of a full-time employment and the provision of project resources, both over a maximum period of 18 months (inventor’s time).

Complementary, an Inventors for Health incubator has been developed specifically for the program, which trains intensively to successfully apply for the Inventors for Health grant. Later, the incubator supports selected Inventors for Health grantees through workshops and mentoring to further develop their promising ideas.

The Inventors for Health Incubator is initiated and implemented by the Berlin Institute for Health (via SPARK Berlin) as a cooperation partner of Stiftung Charité.

Stiftung Charité supports the Inventors for Health program financially with funds from the Private Excellence Initiative Johanna Quandt.