Sanofi will select and fund 10 healthcare startups to attend and pitch at VivaTech 2019,. Vivatech is an annual technology conference, dedicated to innovation and startups, held in Paris, France and will take place in May 16th to 18th 2019.
To be selected by Sanofi, African startups need to find innovative solutions to improve access to healthcare and transform the health ecosystem in Africa. Towards that end, Sanofi has thrown three challenges to startups wishing to take part. They are:
- To provide solutions to enhance awareness, diagnosis and disease management of patients suffering from diabetes.
- How to improve access to medicines in remote areas from supply chain management to alternative payment solutions.
- Solutions to support decision-makers in getting a better usage of available health data to recognize and predict diseases, for research purposes and to improve health care management.
The selected start-ups will be invited to present their innovative solutions at Afric@Tech, a Lab dedicated to the African continent at Vivatech. They will defend their projects in front of a jury consisting of Sanofi representatives and industry professionals, and will be able to demonstrate their solutions to the public.
A jury of professionals will select the final start-ups in February 2019. Start-ups will be evaluated according to 5 criteria: concrete evidence of positive results in at least one African country, project maturity, relevance of the solution, market potential and business model, skills, expertise and experience of the team and finally scientific evidence if applicable.
Applicants have until February 22nd, 2019 to submit their application online here challenges.vivatechnology.com/sanofi-in-africa.