m4 Award 2019: The competition for medical startups
With the m4 Award 2019, future medical startups in the pre-seed phase will have the chance to receive funding. Grants of up to € 500,000 can be applied for. The application deadline is 12th March 2019.
The successful Bavarian pre-start promotion program “m4 Award – Pre-Seed Competition for the Medicine of the Future” will enter the fifth round in 2019. With this competition, the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs supports start-up academic teams in transferring application-oriented research into innovative products and technologies. At the same time, the support helps to validate the projects and to bring them to the spin-off stage. This pre-start promotion also aims to make the start-up company ready for follow-on financing. The winning teams can apply for project funding of up to € 500,000 over a period of 2 years. In addition, all sponsored teams receive intensive project support on the way to founding.
Former Munich winning teams are Preomics, Trianta Immunotherapies focused on personalized immunotherapies, acquired shortly after Medigene was founded, and MetaHeps. Nils Kulak, Managing Director of Preomics, says: “For us, the m4 Award was the ideal springboard for successfully founding our company.” Preomics had recently received millions in funding.
Possible topics
Innovative drug developments (eg immunotherapy vaccines, gene and cell therapies, anti-infective agents, therapeutics for the treatment of age-related diseases and prolonging a healthy life span), ideally with a novel mechanism of action.
Next Generation Diagnostic, Prognostic and Prevention Platforms
Innovative platform technologies for drug discovery and development, microbiome-based products and technologies, competitive, biomedical approaches in Digital Health / Big Data / Artificial Intelligence.
Multi-stage application process
For the m4 Award, a multi-stage application process has proven itself. To apply, start-up teams submit a 5-page brief description of their project. After careful consideration, selected projects receive a recommendation to apply for the second stage with a 15-page sketch. The m4 Award Jury of industry experts and lenders reviews these sketches and invites selected projects to be presented in September 2019.
The m4 Award 2019 will be presented on the first evening of the BioEntrepreneurship Summit 2019 on October 7, 2019.
Overview
Submission of Short Descriptions: 12 March 2019
Submission of Project Outlines: 21 May 2019
Jury Session and Presentations: September 2019
Presentation of the m4 Awards: 7 October 2019
Interested parties will receive further information at the information events for the m4 Award, for example on January 30, 2019 at BioM in Martinsried. Please register for the free event via the website. In addition to the information event, BioM also offers a free consultation on all stages of the application process.