The 6 Inspiring Startups Stand Out from Selection Days, Start Innovation Journey in 3rd Intake of Merck Accelerator China
2020 is a year full of uncertainties and challenges. However, we embrace these turbulent times and changes by responding to uncertainties with the spirit of innovation.
Early March this year, when the epidemic situation was still unclear, we didn’t stop our innovation journey of the Merck China Accelerator program. Instead, we adjusted the plan in time, started the recruitment of the 3rd intake of China Accelerator as scheduled. For the first time, we purely used an online format during the recruiting phase. This didn’t impact our reach which resulted in nearly 300 applications from 29 countries and regions including Asia Pacific, Europe, and America, etc. It’s also the first time we received the most applications with such extensive global coverage compared to the previous intakes.
After several evaluation sessions online with global and local experts, we shortlisted the most promising startups to participate on our Selection Days in our Innovation Hub in Shanghai.
From June 16th to 17th, the Merck Accelerator China 3rd Intake Selection Days was held successfully.21 startups from 5 countries and regions were selected to showcase their solutions to our experts and find out the program fit. The solutions covered cutting-edge technology fields, such as organoids-on-chips, AI-enabled diagnosis and treatment, brain-computer interface medical applications, clean meat cell culture technology, photoelectric material development, liquid biopsy technologies.
One highlight is that we combined the online video conference and offline format for the Selection Days to minimize the impact of the epidemic and travel restrictions, so that all startups could participate and interact in real time. Whether it was workshop, round table discussions, 1-1 meetings, team activities or final pitch. The participants had he chance to fully showcase their technology innovation and business cooperation proposals in front of Merck global experts and external investment institutions.
“Merck is very committed, we continue to do it despite the difficulties, I also really appreciate that you have the aspiration and courage to continue your startup.”
Sophie Sun, Managing Director of Merck Innovation Hub China, Vice President of Merck Strategy & Transformation, said in the opening session,
“I have three thoughts. One is resilience.During the Covid we are not much impacted, one of the reasons of course is the mindset, the other reason is that Merck has deep roots in Healthcare, Life Science, Performance Materials and we actively focus on forward-looking innovation fields.Another thought is about agility. We should not seek for perfection to jeopardize our capability of action, this is also the spirit of startup. The third thing I want to mention is belief.We are a strong believer of science, innovation and responsibility, that’s why we are moving forward for more than 350 years. Through the Accelerator program, we want to leverage our resources to accelerate your startups, and you will also benefit from our strong alumni community. We are very happy that in the first half year, 3 alumni raised another fund!”
Another highlight of the Selection Days was the alumni award ceremony.Due to the impact of the epidemic at the beginning of this year, we moved to an online format for the Demo Day. Therefore, we took the opportunity to invite our alumni of the previous intake to officially award their accomplishment, and invited them to share their journey during the Accelerator program with the participants.
After rounds of internal evaluation and discussion, the following top 6 startups were selected to the 3rd Intake of Merck Accelerator China program and will start their acceleration journey soon!
Merck Accelerator China 3rd Intake Startups
PURI Materials
PURI Materials specializes in optoelectronic materials development and photo-irradiator lab equipment for life science applications. The core team combines expertise in the field of organic chemistry, automation/equipment design and graphical computations to create a series of innovative products. The Cellular Cytotoxicity Irradiator, compatible with both laser and LED light sources at various wavelengths, has made the study of photodynamic therapy and photothermal performing experiments easier and more effective for scientists.
IKAS Industrial Automation
IKAS Industrial Automation was established in Shenzhen, China in 2017. The company is led by the world's top smart manufacturing technology experts and artificial intelligence experts. Now it is one of China's leading smart manufacturing ecosystem solution service providers. IKAS’s main business areas are high-end manufacturing industries, such as semiconductors, optoelectronics, LED lighting and panels. IKAS’s products and solutions help customers shorten production cycle time, increase production capacity, improve product yield, and reduce costs.
ZhenTec.BCI
ZhenTec is a neuro-technology company positioned as a research company of brain-computer interface medical industrialization. Relying on incubation in Xi'an Jiaotong University, they are committed to the research of Brain-controlled interaction, VR/AR and medical rehabilitation robot systems. They aim to promote the application of advanced technology such as Brain computer interface, artificial intelligence and virtual reality in field of medical rehabilitation to help more patients!
Hangzhou M-D Technologies, Inc.
AI based (Text Mining of NLP), real-time CDSS (Clinical Decision Support System) for the diagnosis and treatment of thyroid cancer to enhance clinical decision-making efficiency and accuracy for achieving personalized and precision medicine. The product is designed to assist the physician-patient encounter at multiple points from initial consultation to diagnosis, treatment and follow up. With the system, the paperless outpatient would be possible. The system set up a CDR (Clinical Data Repository) with the function to make medical data structured, so as to facilitate not only the outpatient, but also the medical research, and physician training.
Daxiang Biotech
Daxiang Biotech is a leading organs-on-chips company in China, we are dedicated to provide more biomimetic, higher efficient and more economic in vitro pathophysiology models to replace animal models for drug development and personalized medical treatment. We focus on developing Cancer, Liver and Barrier-related models on our patented chip. Take our 3D PHH liver toxicity model for example, the prediction rate reached approximately 80%, 30pct higher than animal models.
Tantti
Tantti® BioScaffold with a highly porous structure has been developed as the first scaffold tailored for Clean Meat cell expansion. With our proprietary pore forming process, the flexibility, dimensions and optional degradation of the scaffold can be adjusted and customed using edible, non-animal materials. Through its enhanced cell expansion efficiency and affordable cost, Tantti® BioScaffold can reduce the cost barrier of Clean Meats and speed up their market growth.