REshape & StartupDelta to MaRS

MaRS, StartUpDelta and REshape Center forms new international partnerships to advance entrepreneurship and health innovation

MaRS Discovery District in Toronto is pleased to announce memorandums of understanding with StartupDelta and the REshape Center of the Radboud University Medical Center (Radboudumc) in the Netherlands. The agreements were established as part of an official visit to MaRS by their majesties King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands.

These international collaborations are aimed at strengthening talent development, business networks and joint programs across both jurisdictions. The partnership will also connect the innovation hubs to serve shared objectives, including bringing innovative solutions to market, mobilizing and increasing access to investment capital, and driving job creation.

The agreement signed between StartupDelta and MaRS will help identify technologies created by startup ventures in each innovation hub that have potential for development in their respective jurisdictions, as well as more broadly in both Europe and North America. It will also identify new business acceleration opportunities for entrepreneurs in both jurisdictions.

“We’re delighted to announce these collaborations following the visit to MaRS of their majesties King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima,” said Dr. Ilse Treurnicht, CEO of MaRS Discovery District. “Partnering with StartupDelta and Radboudumc’s REshape Center will enable us to share expertise and provide opportunities for innovative technology companies in Canada and the Netherlands to collaborate and grow globally.”

“Connecting MaRS and StartupDelta is a major opportunity for startups to accelerate from both sides of the ocean and combine the best our hubs can offer,” said Sigird Johannisse, Director StartupDelta.

The agreement signed between the REshape Center and MaRS Health will strengthen work across several joint programs to advance innovation in health and healthcare globally.

“Healthcare is becoming more globalized and digital, enabling us to empower people to take more and better control of their lives,” said Lucien Engelen, Director of the REshape Center at Radboud University Medical Center. “This is not just a technological endeavour, it is behavioural change supported by tech. To achieve this requires creating a global collaborative ecosystem with partners like MaRS. I am looking forward to the benefits this collaboration will bring to both citizens and patients. I am proud to sign this MoU together with the Rector Magnificus of Radboud University.”

Highlights of the partnership with the REshape Center at Radboud University Medical Center include:

• Health Startups: Providing promising health startups supported by each organization with access to each others’ markets for testing, validating and piloting their new technologies.
• Health Data: Providing citizens access to their health data via REshape’s “HereisMyData?” and MaRS Data Catalyst’s “MyHealth” data initiatives.
• Entrepreneurship Training: Sharing toolkits and training materials for teaching entrepreneurship to clinicians, life scientists and other budding entrepreneurs and “intra-preneurs” in the Canadian and Netherlands health ecosystems.
• Health Technology Adoption: Research and knowledge exchange as MaRS expands its EXCITE pre-market technology evaluation program internationally; the Radboudumc’s MedValue program in the Netherlands explore partnership models.
• Events collaboration: Jointly hosting global innovation events, such as HackingHealth, Singularity University and the Innovation Learning Network’s global conference at MaRS in the fall of 2015.

Further announcements regarding these partnerships are expected at industry events in Toronto and the Netherlands in late 2015.

About MaRS Discovery District
MaRS Discovery District (@MaRSDD) in Toronto is one of the world’s largest urban innovation hubs. MaRS cultivates high-impact ventures and equips innovators to drive economic and societal prosperity. MaRS provides expert advice and market research, and makes connections to talent, customers and capital. MaRS startup clients have created 6,500 jobs and, in the last three years alone, they have raised $1 billion in capital and generated $500 million in revenue.

About StartupDelta
StartupDelta is Europe’s largest startup ecosystem. Here, startups grow fast. Imagine an entire country working together to achieve a single goal — to create the space where entrepreneurs stand up, start up and scale up. We are linking up the 10+ tech clusters in the Netherlands, changing the system for startups by making sure talent, venture capital and global corporate networks are connected and find their way to The Netherlands.

About the Radboudumc REshape Center
The REshape Center is based at the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Our aim is to grow a movement of people who believe that the next decade belongs to self-empowered patients, an era in which we embrace the patient and their family, and introduce the concept of informal care to the healthcare team. ‘Patient as Partner’ is our core value. We nurture the movement by setting up conferences to exchange thoughts and visions, and listen to each other, and by changing the way we deliver care, research and education. Using technology as a vehicle to improve healthcare, we are seeking, inventing and sharing innovations both nationally and internationally.

For Radboudumc's REshape Center this is a next step in encouraging health(care) innovation. recently we've started a partnership with Rockstart and created with other partners the Rockstart Digital Health Accelerator. Also the health-track of the Dutch hub of Singularity University will be based in Nijmegen's Health Valley, where as the other tracks are based in Eindhoven's Brainport. Also every years since 2011 REshape sets stage for a trip with 40+ people connected to healthcare to Singularity University's Exponential Medicine in San Diego. And there will be more announcements soon about a huge Worldwide health event, as a sequel to the conferences that we have set over the past years. This will be part of the StartUp Fest Europe from May 24-27 in the Netherlands, by StartUpDelta. This special event on patient-empowering innovation will be a joint effort with other Hubs all over the world and academic hospitals in the Netherlands.