Vienna, October 18, 2012 - The international life science business plan competition – Best of Biotech, financed by the Federal Ministry of Economics and organized by the Austrian federal funding bank, austria wirtschaftsservice(aws), registered a record number of participants in the current round: 26 teams participated in the final phase of the two-staged competition - 7 of these teams had their focus on medtech. More than half of the participants came from Austria. Three winning teams from Austria outperformed their international competitors and convinced the expert panel in the final presentation. The entrepreneurial talents received prize money of 40,000 euros in total – sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim, AFFiRiS and the Tiroler Standortagentur.
The Medtech Award “Das goldene Wiener Herz” went to “Hand in Scan”, a Hungarian team, and was awarded for the second time by the cluster organization LISA vienna. “Hand in Scan” develops, validates and commercializes hand hygiene for the direct and objective evaluation of hand washing by means of digital imaging technology. Two Viennese teams won the 2nd and 3rd prizes of the international business plan competition. The second place went to SI MCharacters, which breaks new ground in the development of small training simulators and combines know-how in the medical area, lifelike anatomy and high-class animation technology. The third place went to EveliQure, a recently founded Vienna based biotech company focusing on the development of live attenuated bacterial vaccines for the prevention of diarrheal diseases. The first prize was awarded to the young biotechnology company Vira Therapeutics, focusing on oncolytic virus.