How did the MedTech Startup School `happen´?


In 2014 a medical doctor from the University Hospital Tübingen (Christoph), the university´s startup consultant (Lukas) and the CEO of a software company (Daniel) came together and decided to build up the MedTech Startup School. They have seen that there exist some recipes about how to `cook´a startup, especially Steve Blank´s “The Startup Owner´s Manual“, the Lean Launchpad for Life Sciences and Healthcare and Stanfords Biodesign-Process inspired them. All three had entrepreneurial experience and wanted to use this to build up something new in the high-potential eco-system for Life Sciences in Tübingen.

Lukas always wanted to make `something big´ for startups and couldn’t´ imagine a more exciting field than medical innovations. Just at the right time he met Christoph, who already had some entrepreneurial experience. And after his entrepreneurial digression in Asia, Christoph continued his career as a neurologist. Here he has seen a big need for disruptive innovations in healthcare, among others inspired by Clayton Christensen´s “Innovator´s Prescription“. And Daniel, Christoph years long companion, was enthusiastic about the idea to systematically support startups. But the thing had to be done!

The first supporters of the first MedTech Startup School in 2015 were the Ministry of Economy, Labour and Housing Baden Württemberg (formerly Ministry of Economics and Finance), the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), the non-for-profit Medical Innovations Foundation, the Medical Innovations Incubator GmbH, the BioRegioSTERN GmbH, and last but not least the University of Tübingen and the University Hospital Tübingen.

With the time more and more private and institutional supporters joined the MedTech Startup School, which became Germany´s #1 MedTech Acceleration program.