New innovations implemented in diabetes patient care with the support of Innovestor’s Scouting and Co-creation services

Innovestor’s Corporate Venturing customer Medtronic is a global leader in medical technology, services, and solutions.  Together with Innovestor, Medtronic wanted to support further development of Central Finland Healthcare District’s (CFHCD) diabetes patient care.  Goal of the cooperation was to enable innovative ways to enhance the treatment for diabetes patients

Cooperation content in nutshell: 

• Scouting: Innovestor’s startup scouting searched potential startups and solutions from Nordic and Baltic markets. The scouted solutions were evaluated together with the partners and the 9 most promising ones were met in one-on-one meetings for further evaluation. 
• Co-creation: Onnikka -startup and their lifestyle intervention application for overweight and obese people was selected to the pilot co-creation between startup, corporation and health care district. In this Co-creation work the goal was to enable the initialization of Onnika’s solution for CFHCD’s patients. Co-creation was executed with advisory board work facilitated by Innovestor. Board consisted of the members from Medtronic, CFHCD and with members from Onnikka and Innovestor.
• Result: Onnikka’s solution pilot for the CFHCD’s patients started in June 2022 based on the jointly designed plan from co-creation work. 

Customer comments 

“This is a new operating model for us. It is great that all of this has stemmed from the interest of the health care district and that our goal has been the same from the beginning – to improve patient care and facilitate the work of health care professionals. We have been able to utilize our own expertise and learn new things during our discussions with other actors. Cooperation with many different actors has been a fundamental asset. Innovestor has good expertise to facilitate cooperation between multiple partners”, says Tiina Pihkala, Sales Manager Finland, Medtronic 

”The co-development process was overall a positive experience and led to an important pilot for us with the Central Finland Health Care District. At the beginning of the process, we were still operating under the university, which was well taken into account, and it was not an obstacle to success in any way. The discussion between the parties involved in the work was open and forward-looking. The process contained clear goals and was systematically facilitated and slowly progressed towards piloting. This could not have been done better“, says Teppo Virkkula, CEO, Onnikka Health 

“Digital tools are key utilities in tackling the treatment gap related to common diseases. CFHCD set out to find these tools with a co-development model, where Innovestor has acted as a facilitator. Screening of companies and applications was carried out with extremely efficient working model and the help of Innovestor. Implementation of Onnika proceeded quickly with the help of flexible and well-organized meetings. Onnika’s strong scientific background and easy-to-use standalone operating model confirmed our choice. The citizens welcomed Onnika with joy and we are now following the development of the effectiveness parameters with enthusiasm through the pilot that CFHCD is currently running”, says Anna-Mari Koski CMIO, endocrinologist, CFHCD 

For more information, please contact: 

Lassi Starck, Corporate Venturing, Innovestor: lassi.starck@innovestor.fi,  +358 400 528 408