Join us for EIT Health morning talk "More than money. The missing links in healthcare innovation success"

On 29 May from 9:00 to 12:00, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s (EIT) Knowledge and Innovation Community for Health (EIT Health) will host the first EIT Health Morning Health Talks event of the year. This time, the discussion topic will be “More Than Money: The Missing Links in Healthcare Innovation Success,” with the aim of understanding the needs of the healthcare sector and how startups can meet them.

Although in recent years the opportunities to attract funding—both from public institutions and private investors—have significantly expanded, the number of health startups in Latvia still lags behind neighbouring countries. Why is that? Is funding alone enough to ensure the development of innovations? And what are the invisible yet crucial elements needed for innovative ideas to become real solutions?

Aim of the event

The event will be opened by Dr. Jesús Purroy, Senior Business Development Manager at Inveniam from Catalonia, with a presentation on the factors that drive the development of health startups and innovations in the Catalan region. This will be followed by a panel discussion with industry experts: Didzis Rūtīts (CEO of the startup Sepsiscan), Jānis Ancāns (Senior Expert of the Latvian Science Council "Horizon Europe"), Artūrs Ozoliņš (Member of the Board of Pauls Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital), Jeļena Jesajana (Prof. Skride Heart Clinic CEO) and representative from the Ministry of Health.

Experts from various fields—including healthcare professionals, startup representatives, policymakers, and other innovation enthusiasts—will analyse the non-financial barriers, such as regulatory complexity, lack of access to data, user trust issues, and systemic inertia, that hinder the integration of new solutions into practice. The goal of the discussion is to identify actionable strategies that can help build a more open, collaborative, and long-term value-oriented healthcare innovation ecosystem.

About EIT Health

EIT Health aims to develop an ecosystem that fosters innovative healthcare solutions and promotes longer, healthier lives. The community provides active mentorship support to stakeholders, as well as financial and research support. EIT Health has helped bring 113 new healthcare solutions to market and has trained 49,000 students and professionals. The EIT Health center in Latvia is located at Riga Stradiņš University.

The event is organised by the Latvian representative office of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s (EIT) Health Knowledge and Innovation Community, based at Rīga Stradiņš University.