Incubator and entrepreneurship services

University of Helsinki offers themed pre-incubator and incubator programs on each campus. In Meilahti, there are programs supporting researchers and students working on innovation and entrepreneurship projects in the fields of health, medicine and pharma. Even though these services are located in Meilahti, these programs are open to researchers from all campuses. Read more about entrepreneurship and innovation training for students and staff.
Programmes

Meilahti offers support for teams working on health and pharma innovation via three programmes.

HealthX - pre-incubator

The HealthX pre-incubator program helps early-stage teams during their first steps towards health and pharma innovation. During the program, teams crystallize their idea and start reflecting on its business potential.

SPARK Finland - development programme

SPARK Finland provides selected health tech & life science teams a necessary bridge between early-stage idea development and full-on business incubation. By working with an internationally acclaimed process model, SPARK Finland helps participants' ideas increase in maturity and become practical and value creating solutions in their field.

Health Incubator Helsinki

Health Incubator Helsinki (HIH) is aimed at teams that have already established a company or will do so withing six months of starting the program. HIH provides up to three years of comprehensive business development services, modern office and coworking facilities in Terkko Health Hub, and broad networking opportunities to selected health-sector startups. The incubator programme is always customized based on the individual needs of each participating team to maximize their odds of success.

Biodesign Finland

In Biodesign, systematically identified medical needs are solved by inventing and implementing new biomedical technologies. Developed at Stanford University, Biodesign aims at improved medical care by providing a novel entrepreneurial program to selected interdisciplinary teams and by creating new businesses. After an initial training,the team is immersed in a clinic for a month to observe its processes. The team’s sole task during immersion is to identify 100–200 needs that have not been optimally met. After immersion, the team will brainstorm and analyze these needs in order to determine the most important and solvable ones. Eventually, one need will be chosen and a solution developed for clinical use and commercialization.

Biodesign Finland is organized by Aalto University, University of Helsinki, HUS, Metropolia and Laurea.

Health Proof Helsinki

Health Proof Helsinki combines Helsinki's three most significant public research, development and innovation environments (RDI environments) in the form of a unified service entity in the fields of health technology and medical technology. Through a unified service package, companies in the industry have smooth access to tripartite’s expertise and specialist facilities for the various stages of their product development activities:

  • Early-stage preclinical testing environments and expertise (Metropolia Proof Health),
  • Research and testing environments and expertise in primary health care and social work (City of Helsinki), and
  • Research environments and expertise in specialist care and diagnostics (HUS Helsinki University Hospital).
Entrepreneurship and innovation training

Helsinki Think Company offers entrepreneurship-related training and support to students also at the Meilahti campus. Think Company space in Meilahti is located in the ground floor of Terkko Health Hub.