The Story of Roche: Generating Value Through Innovation

Roche Diagnostics is the leading diagnostic provider focused on solving unmet medical needs to improve global public health. In collaboration with Plug and Play, they're innovating to rethink the healthcare industry.

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  • Health
    Vertical
  • 2018
    Year they joined the platform
  • 30+
    Startups accelerated
  • >50%
    Follow-up rate
  • Munich
    Location

A Place to Empower HealthTech and Innovation

Each year, Roche delivers billions of test results into the global market With such a high amount of tests, digital innovation became a clear way to unlock their full potential within the healthcare space. 

At Roche, they are constantly looking for external solutions to complement their internal R&D efforts. Plug and Play is the chosen partner to support that goal. 

The partnership between Roche and Plug and Play started in 2018 by launching the first health-focused innovation platform in Munich - “Startup Creasphere”. 

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  • Roche 1

    “We had very similar ideas on how to do innovation in digital.”

    Jochen Hurlebaus, Head of Digital Health Innovation at Roche Diagnostics International

  • Roche 1

    “We made the decision to really take the opportunity to engage with the startup community, because we could see the breadth of innovation and ideas”

    Ian Parfrement, Senior Vice President, Global Franchise Lead Point of Care

Roche has been closely involved as a founding member throughout the whole process.

They have run co-creation pilots with over 30 startups across the different batches and extended collaborations with more than 50% of them after the program to embrace digital transformation within the diagnostics space.

Among them, Roche stands out not only on technology-oriented solutions, such as Huma.ai or Sorcero, leveraging NLP and voice recognition technologies to bring better services to the health industry. Roche also established customer-centric solutions with sustainable business models that they can implement into their business seamlessly such as Veta Health or FibriCheck 

“It is highly valuable for a company like Roche, who is committed to innovation to work alongside and to learn from the Plug and Play ecosystem”    -   Ian Parfrement

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Think Big (But Start Small)

For Roche, Startup Creasphere is a great platform to work with startups that have great innovative ideas and outstanding capabilities to develop customer-centric digital solutions. As a corporation, Roche’s goal is to accelerate these early-stage companies in bringing value to customers and healthcare systems.

“We want to continue this journey and bring more startups into the diagnostic space.” - Jochen Hurlebaus


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How Roche Collaborates with Startups

  • Precordior & Roche

  • idatase & Roche

  • Altoida & Roche

  • Testcard & Roche

  • Streem.ai & Roche

Timeline

  • 01/2018 – Trial Batch Startup Creasphere in Munich
  • 09/2018 – Roche and Plug and Play found Startup Creasphere in Munich
  • 10/2019 – First Roche participation in health program of Plug and Play in the Silicon Valley
  • 08/2020 – Exploring APAC ecosystem via trial batch in Singapore

Reshape the future of healthcare

We connect the best startups in the world to corporations who want to disrupt the healthcare industry. 

We focus on digital health technologies that challenge clinical practices, improve data analytics, and enhance the patient journey across the continuum of care.

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