Scopis GmbH awarded the Fraunhofer Start-up Prize

On Tuesday, 23 February 2016, Scopis GmbH was awarded the Fraunhofer Startup Prize. The prize was established by the Fraunhofer Venture together with the High-Tech Gründerfonds and is worth 5,000 euros. It recognizes the current success and phenomenal development of the Fraunhofer spin-off on the international market for medical technology. Scopis GmbH is now active in more than 50 countries with its surgical navigation systems for minimally invasive surgery in the specialist areas of ENT, CMF, neuro and spine surgery.

The Fraunhofer Start-up Prize developed out of Fraunhofer‘s new spin-off and investment strategy. It honours a spin-off that is active and successful on the market and whose products and services provide a direct benefit to society. “Together with the High-Tech Gründerfonds, we want to support spin-off projects inside the Fraunhofer Society and acknowledges exceptional start-up activity,“ says Thomas Doppelberger, head of the Fraunhofer Venture, explaining the goals of the new Start-up Prize. Prof. Dr. Alfred Gossner, board member of the Fraunhofer Society, and Dr. Alex von Frankenberg, director of the High-Tech Gründerfonds, presented the Fraunhofer Start-up Prize, endowed with 5,000 euros, to Scopis GmbH on Tuesday, 23 February 2016, at the Fraunhofer Symposium “Netzwert”.

Surgical Navigation Systems offer greater safety for patients and surgeons

Scopis GmbH was founded in 2010 out of the Berliner Zentrum für Mechatronische Medizintechnik (BZMM), a cooperation between the Fraunhofer-Institut für Produktionsanlagen und Konstruktionstechnik IPK and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. The medical technology firm develops and sells endoscopic and microscopic navigation systems for use in minimally invasive surgery. With Scopis Target Guided Surgery technology, the surgeon can determine the target and the path for the intervention even before he begins the operation. An acoustic signal provides a warning as soon as the surgeon deviates from the planned path. At the same time, a new “Augmented Reality” function visualizes planning information and the path guide. This enables the operating doctor to find and remove the diseased tissue without damaging nerves or other critical structures. The operation can be conducted less invasively and the healing process is therefore accelerated. The navigation system also facilitates the training of new surgeons.

“One of the most important factors in the success of Scopis was the gaining of the Fraunhofer Society and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin as partners and shareholders. This enabled us to license the unique and innovative technologies that we have further developed and integrated into novel interdisciplinary products,” explains Bartosz Kosmecki, founder and CEO of Scopis GmbH.

Establishment of Scopis in the international market and extension of application areas

“We are very happy to be able to develop successful companies together with Fraunhofer Venture, the Fraunhofer institutes and researchers from internationally leading technologies,” explains Dr. Alex von Frankenberg with regard to the decision in favour of the medical company Scopis. Professor Eckart Uhlmann, institute head of Fraunhofer IPK, is particularly happy about the founding of Scopis out of his institute: “With the development of new products as well as the securing of the innovations with a strong IP strategy, Scopis GmbH has extended the initial application area of ENT surgery to CMF, neuro and spine surgery, thus aiming to achieve even further market penetration. The Fraunhofer Society wishes to honour these exceptional scientific and entrepreneurial activities with the Start-up Prize.”

About Scopis GmbH
Scopis® GmbH, based in Germany, develops and manufactures surgical planning and navigation systems for ENT, maxillofacial, neuro and spine surgery. Scopis was founded in 2010 out of Charité – Universitätsmedizin and the Fraunhofer Society in Berlin. Scopis Target
Guide Surgery (TGS®) is a unique “next-generation“ solution for navigated endoscopic surgery that offers surgeons highly advanced image guidance and visualization capabilities. Scopis TGS® is provided by the Scopis Hybrid Navigation® system, that is the first clinical
navigation platform to offer electromagnetic, optical and simultaneous hybrid tracking technology in a single integrated control unit. Scopis operates in more than 50 countries.

About Fraunhofer IPK
The Fraunhofer-Institut für Produktionsanlagen und Konstruktionstechnik IPK is involved in applied research and development for the entire spectrum of industrial tasks – from product development to the production process and the reuse of products all the way
to the design and management of factory facilities. In addition, the institute considers it particularly important to also make production technology solutions applicable outside the industrial sector, for example in the areas of medicine, mobility and security.

About the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is the leading organization for applied research in Europe. Its research activities are conducted by 67 institutes and research units at locations throughout Germany. The Fraunhofer- Gesellschaft employs a staff of 24,000, who work with an annual research budget totalling more than 2.1 billion euros.

About Fraunhofer Venture
As the partner of spin-offs from the Fraunhofer Society, Fraunhofer institutes, industry and investors, Fraunhofer Venture supports scientists with links to Fraunhofer on their way to establishing their own technology companies. In matters relating to technology marketing and business models, your contact at the Fraunhofer Society headquarters is the Fraunhofer Venture. Since 1999, more than 300 companies have been successfully founded out of Fraunhofer research topics.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
High-Tech Gründerfonds invests in young, high potential high-tech start-ups. The seed financing provided is designed to enable start-ups to take an idea through prototyping and to market launch. Typically, High-Tech Gründerfonds invests EUR 600,000 in the seed stage, with the potential for up to a total of EUR 2 million per portfolio company in follow-on financing. Investors in this public/private partnership include the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy, the KfW Banking Group, as well as strategic corporate investors including ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, B. Braun, Robert Bosch, CEWE, Daimler, Deutsche Post DHL, Deutsche Telekom, Evonik, Lanxess, media + more venture Beteiligungs GmbH & Co. KG, METRO, Qiagen, RWE Innogy, SAP, Tengelmann and Carl Zeiss. High-Tech Gründerfonds has about EUR 576 million under management in two funds (EUR 272 million HTGF I, EUR 304 million HTGF II).

Contact:
High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH
Stefanie Zillikens – Leiterin Öffentlichkeitsarbeit / Head of Public Relations
Schlegelstraße 2 – 53113 Bonn
Tel: +49 228 823001-07 – Fax: +49 228 823000-50
s.zillikens@htgf.de
https://www.htgf.de/en/