{"id":446,"date":"2024-12-17T09:06:14","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T08:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usz-foundation.com\/projects\/damit-innovationen-durchstarten\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T16:23:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T15:23:05","slug":"getting-innovations-off-the-ground","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/usz-foundation.com\/en\/projects\/getting-innovations-off-the-ground\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting innovations off the ground"},"content":{"rendered":"

Getting innovations off the ground<\/h3><\/div>

University Hospital Zurich now has a platform to help it identify and promote innovations even more rapidly: the Health Innovation Hub. The Hub is designed to support novel developments that benefit patients directly. One project that has already profited is the start-up b-rayZ.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Support the project today \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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\u201cThe Hub is helping take our project to the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Translating an innovative idea into a finished product requires a lot of staying power \u2212 as Cristina Rossi knows from her own experience. She works as a physicist and data analyst at the Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at University Hospital Zurich (USZ). Together with Andreas Boss and Alexander Ciritsis, she\u2019s developed the b-box, a device that helps doctors with the diagnosis and early detection of breast cancer. To be able to offer this valuable innovation to other hospitals in Switzerland and abroad, the USZ project team has established a start-up called b-rayZ, with Cristina Rossi as its co-CEO.<\/p>\n

Innovation projects often face the same challenges: their technical knowledge is second to none, but they lack entrepreneurial experience, legal knowledge, or even money. For the b-rayZ team, it was a real stroke of luck that University Hospital Zurich launched its Health Innovation Hub in 2019. The Hub has a team of innovation specialists tasked with identifying and systematically supporting promising ideas at USZ. The Health Innovation Hub is what\u2019s known on the start-up scene as an incubator for new ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey supported our project right from the very beginning,\u201d says Cristina Rossi. For example, the Hub gave the research group access to USZ\u2019s infrastructure, provided coaching in financial matters, and put them in touch with the relevant experts. \u201cThis enabled us to thoroughly analyze our strengths and weaknesses, which now puts us on a very strong footing as a start-up,\u201d continues Rossi. The Hub has also taken a financial stake in the project and has joined forces with the USZ Foundation to seek philanthropic support and additional investors.<\/p>\n

b-rayZ was one of the first projects supported by the Hub. The goal is to evaluate around 60 innovative undertakings every year with a view to supporting 20 of them. These could be innovations from USZ staff or from external start-ups that want to work with USZ to develop their project. Because the potential for innovation at USZ is huge. That\u2019s hardly a surprise given the combination of smart people and rapid technological development that\u2019s making possible entirely new types of diagnosis and therapy.<\/p>\n

All the projects supported by the Hub have a clear goal: to enable patients to benefit as quickly as possible. Cristina Rossi firmly believes in the idea: \u201cThe Hub is crucial to driving innovation at USZ, for the benefit of the whole of society.\u201d Thanks to its generous supporting partners, the USZ Foundation can provide early-stage funding. In cases of commercial success, earnings flow back to the USZ Foundation and are subsequently used to fund more medical innovations that benefit patients, creating a philanthropic funding loop<\/a> that enhances the impact of every franc donated. <\/p>\n

To give the Innovation Hub the necessary impetus, the USZ Foundation is looking for further supporting partners for the incubator.<\/p>\n

Health Innovation Hub<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/span>
\nFounding partner<\/span>
\n <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>

Dr. Hans-Peter Wild Family Foundation<\/p>\n<\/div>

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\n Pioneer partner<\/span>
\n <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>

SWICA
\nZ\u00fcrcher Kantonalbank<\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/span>
\n Contact<\/span>
\n <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>
\"Portr\u00e4t<\/span>
Sandra Hagmann<\/div>

Philanthropy | Foundations<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>

+41 43 254 55 00
sandra.hagmann@usz-foundation.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":339,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"100-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-446","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usz-foundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usz-foundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usz-foundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usz-foundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usz-foundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/usz-foundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1145,"href":"https:\/\/usz-foundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/446\/revisions\/1145"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usz-foundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usz-foundation.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}