Success Story | Clinomic: AI-based intensive care medicine on the rise
The RWTH spin-off Clinomic has closed a financing round of 7 million euros. The impetus for this was provided by Mona, the smart assistant system for intensive care units. With the smart assistant, the Aachen-based start-up is now ready to revolutionise the medtech industry. The fact that the young team is able to take this next step is the result of a successful combination of interdisciplinarity, boldness and an active exploration of the start-up idea.
From interdisciplinary research to award-winning technology
The success was based on close interdisciplinary cooperation between RWTH Aachen University and the Unklinik Aachen in the fields of engineering, electrical engineering and medicine. In February 2019, this long-standing research cooperation gave rise to Clinomic GmbH. The founding team is just as diverse, including Prof. Anke Schmeink from the Department of Information Theory and Systematic Design of Communication Systems, Prof. Guido Dartmann from the Institute for Communication Technologies and Embedded Systems, Dr Arne Peine, Priv.-Doz. Lukas Martin and Prof. Gernot Marx from the University Hospital Aachen as well as Prof. Christoph Thiemermann from the William Harvey Research Institute at Queen Mary University of London. The founding team not only won the RWTH Spin-off Award 2019, but also received €1.6 million in funding, including the EIT Health Headstart Award 2019 from the renowned European Institute of Innovation and Technology. Meanwhile, the start-up is also an exclusive partner of well-known companies (e.g. Microsoft, NVIDIA, Google).
Artificial intelligence in the intensive care unit
Clinomic provides the interface between medical professionals and the database. Through the unique combination of translational medical research, data science and computational intelligence, medical algorithms are developed based on state-of-the-art technology and artificial intelligence. The result is Mona, a kind of “Alexa” with a PhD. The smart assistant supports nurses and doctors in optimising the treatment of their patients – right beside the patient’s bed. This means that the team treating the patient on site can directly view all the patient’s data. Moreover, specialised staff can also be called in remotely for treatment. By means of voice control, the intelligent assistance system for the intensive care unit interacts with the medical and nursing staff and provides all information necessary for efficient and individual medical care.
Interdisciplinarity, boldness and a founding spirit as a recipe for success in research transfer
As one of more than ten spin-offs from Uniklinik RWTH Aachen, Clinomic is one of many successful research transfer projects in the medical science. Nevertheless, Prof. Marx, holder of Germany’s only Chair of Anaesthesiology with a research focus on Operative Intensive Care Medicine, said he was particularly impressed by this team. “They are committed and bold – at their age, I hadn’t even thought about the idea of founding a company.”
By signing a licence agreement in the summer of 2020, the Clinomic team finally laid the foundation for a financing round that has now been successfully completed, and for helping to shape the future of medical care.
