Novartis' Startup Challenge for Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile healthtechs

Contxto – Swiss multinational, Novartis, wants healthtechs from Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina. And rather than seek them out country by country, it’s launched its Startup Challenge so they come to Novartis.

Winners will join Novartis’ major networking event on April 22 where over 300 health industry leaders will be in assistance. Mentoring and workshops will also be given to align the startup’s solution to Novartis’ value proposition.

Likewise, the selected healthtechs also obtain opportunities to partner up with the multinational, as well as deploy pilot projects.

Novartis’ specifications

Novartis is targeting startups that explore solutions for diagnosing, controlling, or easing access to necessary treatment. It also has a preference for healthtechs developing solutions for therapeutic treatments in ophthalmology, endocrinology, immunology, infectology, neurosciences, oncology, and hematology.

Startups interested in applying should already have a developed product that’s ready for testing. Needless to say, it must be scalable for a regional or global application. Moreover, the startup must have at least one customer.

And last, but not least, applicants must be legally constituted in Uruguay, Chile, or Argentina.

If you think your healthteach has what it takes, you can apply here.

Scaling healthtechs

Novartis launched this challenge in 2017. And one of its most-mentioned success cases is Argentine healthtech, ViewMind. Through its technology, Alzheimer’s disease may be diagnosed prior to the patient even showing symptoms of the malaise.

Since participating in the program, the healthtech has been busy in an accelerator program in Luxembourg. And soon it will be running a clinical trial with 300 patients in Boston, alongside an unnamed multinational firm.

So, it’s likely the Swiss company gave the startup the necessary intros to launch a promising product.

And, as we recently explored in our market map of healthtechs from Argentina, the Southern Cone of Latin America has vast potential in startups for healthcare.

Initiatives like Novartis’ are the sort of thing to keep that mojo going.

Related articles: Tech and startups from Uruguay!

-ML