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Sanofi Sets Up Innovation Challenge for Techies

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Sanofi, a major player in innovation in Africa, is launching four challenges for African start-ups to find innovative solutions to improve access to healthcare and transform the health ecosystem throughout the continent. The select local start-ups will be pitched at VivaTech, an annual technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups, which will take place in Paris, France as from June 11th to 13th, 2020.

The challenge aims to identify, select and support the best start-ups in the health sector on the African continent. They are part of Sanofi's strategy to encourage innovation in the African continent, in order to create a health ecosystem that is at the service of the patient while including all stakeholders in the sector: public authorities, private companies and start-ups.

The 4 challenges include supporting patients with a digital health book in order to access information and make decisions, providing solutions to help healthcare systems leapfrog from manual to smart logistics solutions at the point of care, improving financing and impact of innovative health solutions in Africa and seeking solutions on how to improve maternal and neonatal health in sub-Saharan Africa.

Sanofi will select the start-ups after the closure of the on-line application platform. Start-ups will be evaluated according to 5 criteria: concrete evidence of positive results in at least one African country, project maturity, the relevance of the solution, market potential and business model, skills, expertise and experience of the team and finally scientific evidence if applicable.

The selected start-ups will be invited to present their innovative solutions at Afric@tech, the VivaTech Lab dedicated to the African continent. They will defend their projects in front of a jury consisting of Sanofi representatives and industry professionals and will be able to demonstrate their solutions to the public. Following VivaTech, Sanofi will evaluate with each start-up the potential for a partnership.

In 2018 and 2019, Sanofi received almost 200 start-up applications and 20 were selected to join the Sanofi stand in the Afric@tech dedicated space at VivaTech. As of today, discussions are on-going with over 15 start-ups with some successful initiatives rolled out.

This call for submissions is free and open to all, To register and make a submission head over to the information and registration platform:
https://challenges.vivatechnology.com/en/challenges/sanofi-in-africa?lang=en.

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