Staying as fit and mobile as possible has great impact on our health and quality of life, not least as we grow older. By adding the “mobee® care” module to its digital diagnostics platform mobee® 360, SportMed A.G. wants to provide a practical solution helping seniors improve their level of fitness or stay in good shape.
Nursing staff or other health professionals can use the tool to assess and record data on mobility, strength, coordination and endurance of their patients. Based on the results, mobee® care also recommends suitable exercises that can easily be implemented in everyday life without additional stress for either patients or care staff.
Funding enabling innovation
mobee® care was developed through a research and development project subsidised by the Ministry of the Economy. The funding allowed the company to go much further in its innovation than it could have done on its own. “This R&D project required considerable investment for a period exceeding three years, and without the grant, it would have been impossible for a small family-run business like SportMed to carry it out,” confirms co-founder Jessica Berner Egen. She also underlines the importance of the ministry’s fast and reliable processing of fund applications, not least during the COVID crisis when the company was behind schedule. “The ministry was always open to hear us out and find solutions.”
Luxinnovation provided the ‘icing on the cake’ that increased the chances of our application being approved and helped speed up the process.
Luxinnovation also provided crucial input for the preparation of the project and the funding application. The agency conducted a thorough pre-assessment of the grant application, in particular the financial statements and key performance indicators, in order to align them with the requirements of the ministry. It helped make a pre-evaluation of the risks and impact of the project and advised on adding helpful elements, such as letters from project partners in which they endorsed the market need for the product. “Luxinnovation provided the ‘icing on the cake’ that increased the chances of our application being approved and helped speed up the process.”
Ongoing market launch
SportMed has now started to commercialise the product. “We are initially focusing on our existing clients in the physical therapy and health prevention field who have an increasing need for specific programmes targeting seniors,” says Ms Berner Egen. “Our customers are showing great interest, as many of them have been waiting for a solution to serve their elderly clients. With the first deliveries already under way, they will now be able to carry out targeted mobility assessments and suggest relevant measures.”
Our customers are showing great interest, as many of them have been waiting for a solution to serve their elderly clients.
“SportMed is one of the players who is linking fitness and medicine (prevention or therapy),” comments Jean-Philippe Arié, manager of the Luxembourg HealthTech Cluster at Luxinnovation. “The emergence of such organisations requires a culture that connects digital technologies (hardware and software), medicine and the regulatory context. We are proud to have a few companies in Luxembourg like SportMed that are capable of reconciling these three worlds in their products and services.”
The next step will be to address the senior care market, in particular in-patient care facilities such as retirement homes and senior day care centres. But the ambitions do not stop here: SportMed is looking to partner with a larger healthcare company or investor focusing on health and prevention in order to develop the senior in-patient care market further and adapt mobee® care to the needs of international markets.
Photo credit: SportMed A.G.