RespiQ awarded €4M EIC Pathfinder grant for COPD monitoring device

Today RespiQ, a Dutch healthtech company, announced that it has been awarded a €4 million Pathfinder grant from the European Innovation Council (EIC).

COPD is a prevalent global lung disease affecting nearly 400 million people and ranking as the 3rd leading cause of death worldwide. Worldwide, six percent of all deaths are caused by COPD.

The company's mission is to enhance the well-being of COPD patients by building a sensor device for real-time, at-home patient monitoring. The device will offer an early warning system for impending lung attacks.

RespiQ will receive the €4 million grant over the next three and a half years alongside a distinguished international consortium of renowned academic institutions and medical research organisations, which includes King's Centre for Lung Health, School of Immunology and Microbial Sciences at King's College London, the National eHealth Living Lab within the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), the Norwegian research organisation Sintef, and the Portuguese technical consulting and research company, uRoboptics.

Mira Gleisberg, CEO of RespiQ, comments:

"Receiving the EIC Pathfinder grant marks a significant milestone for our company and consortium, as it enables us to accelerate the development of our cutting-edge breath diagnostics device, bringing hope to thousands of COPD patients struggling to monitor their disease."

RespiQ originated during a founder residency in Amsterdam run by Antler, the most active early-stage investor in Europe, in 2019. During the residency, tech inventors Vitalii Vorkov and Mira Gleisberg developed the strategic concept for their breath diagnostics technology and started to build RespiQ.

RJ Schuurs, Partner at Antler, comments:

 "We are delighted to have supported RespiQ from day zero of their growth journey, and this prestigious funding grant is a testament to their long-term growth potential.

This is an outstanding founding team building a technology that could improve the lives of thousands of people around the world. We are very excited to see what RespiQ and their consortium partners can deliver in the coming years."