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Festo and MassRobotics have named the first four companies in their inaugural Healthcare Robotics Startup Catalyst. The startup program is designed to advance healthcare robotics developments by providing companies with investor and customer introductions, access to subject-matter experts, and a range of technical and marketing support resources.

The inaugural catalyst program runs now through March 2022. The startups will also have access to the innovation centers and engineering teams of Festo, one of the world’s leading automation companies, and collaborating corporate partners.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lack of awareness between the healthcare and technology communities was evident in terms of how robotics could be applied to ease staffing concerns and reduce the potential spread of the virus. Many unmet and untapped white spaces were identified, which initiated the development of a MassRobotics Healthcare Robotics Working Group and the Catalyst.

“To fill these spaces, we encouraged healthcare robotics startups in the following areas to apply to the catalyst program – clinical care, public safety, laboratory and supply chain automation, out-of-hospital care, quality of life, continuity of work and education, and healthcare professional training and support,” said Fady Saad, MassRobotics co-founder and VP of strategic partnerships. “The response and quality of the companies were overwhelming. We believe this inaugural group represents an excellent cross-section of the many initiatives in healthcare robotics.”

Here is a quick look at each of the four companies:

Assistive Technology
A Colorado-based startup dedicated to at-home physical therapy solutions that are operable at a low cost and always accessible to rural patients and those who need closer monitoring for recovery.

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Bionomous
Swiss company Bionomous provides laboratory equipment to automate the screening, sorting, and pipetting of miniature biological entities for more ethical and faster research in life science. The company said its micro-engineering design and machine learning methods can develop devices that automatically inspect and sort miniature biological entities such as zebrafish embryos.

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Eureka Robotics
This Singapore startup provides software and systems to automate tasks that require simultaneously High Accuracy and High Agility (HA-HA) across industries, from optics, to electronics, to automotive. You might have seen coverage of its robotics system that could assembly IKEA furniture.

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Kinarm
This Canadian startup uses robotic arms to provide an objective assessment method to identify, measure, and track cognitive, motor, or sensory impairments resulting from injury or disease.

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“Our mission is to ultimately improve patient outcomes and the quality of healthcare with transformative innovations brought to market by startups through the catalyst program,” said Nuzha Yakoob, head of technology & innovation North America, Festo.