News & Events

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The corona virus causing COVID-19 overwhelmed Europe and the world in just a few weeks’ time in 2020. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and other business were put at very high risk by the slowdown or shutdown of economic life in their countries – exactly those companies who ensure the development of innovative solutions urgently required for counteracting impacts of COVID-19 and for helping to control possible future outbreaks alike.
Consequently, the three MedTech Open Innovation Testbed (OITB) projects TBMED, MDOT and SAFE-N-MEDTECH decided to work together and open a call to include new case studies in their on-going projects. Innovative SMEs, companies, start-ups and applied research institutions working on the development of solutions to fight the virus were able to apply to this call. The three projects allocated part of their budgets in order to provide services to selected innovators and help them reach the market faster.
The concept of OITBs to forge pan-European innovation networks tailored to the specific needs of novel medical technologies  makes them the ideal instruments for quickly finding solutions under urgent conditions such as the COVID-19 outbreak.
The three OITBs thus initiated a call for expressions of interest from MedTech SMEs performing COVID-19-related developments. Support was and is provided in the following ways:

• TBMED offered services to developers from the high-risk medical devices sector, particularly with regard to characterization, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, follow-up and the forecast of patient prognosis related to COVID-19. Such services include, among others, early dialogues with the Basque HTA office, expert advice for regional and/or multinational clinical trials on COVID-19 and the assessment of needs of such companies regarding clinical trials.
• MDOT members who develop routines and processes to accelerate the conformity assessment of medical devices, offered consultation regarding regulatory affairs and technology development in the fields of inhalation technologies and sensors.
• SAFE-N-MEDTECH with its key expertise in nano-enabled medical technologies, offered characterization, preclinical validation, access to biobanks and patient samples, scale up and regulatory support, technology assessment and horizon scanning.

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On March 9^th-10^th, 2020, – right before the lockdown due to the Corona virus outbreak in Europe – the MDOT partners met in Düsseldorf, Germany, for the 2nd Progress Meeting.

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On 27^th-28^th August 2019, the 13 European partners of MDOT will come together for the first Progress Meeting in Cidetec, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain.

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The MDOT Kickoff Meeting with representatives from all 13 partner institutions took place on March 6^th-7^th, 2019. The Meeting was organized by and held at the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine ITEM in Hannover, Germany.