Small robots to deliver pharmaceuticals to the body

Robots that can operate inside the body and a platform that combines ultrasound with AI. These are a couple of the technologies that have qualified for a list that aims to promote sustainable entrepreneurship.

The startup company Bionaut Labs in California, USA, is developing microrobots that can be sent into the brain and navigated using magnets. On site, the remote-controlled small machines can operate with millimeter precision and then be guided back to the surgeon.

The robots can operate in several different types of tissues and can therefore be used in different parts of the body. One area of application that the company is working on is that they should be able to deliver medicines locally.

Bionaut Labs is one of 100 companies featured on the Norrsken Foundation's Impact 100 list. The foundation has selected the 100 startup companies that, according to Norrsken, are the world's most promising startups from a sustainability perspective. These are companies that develop technologies to reduce, for example, hunger or climate impact.

The ambition is for the list to constitute a "Nobel Prize for Impact" so that entrepreneurs can receive as much attention as Nobel Laureates, the Foundation states in a press release.

Of the 100 companies on the list, 12 work with solutions for healthcare and life science.

Several of the companies are working to improve healthcare with the help of AI. One example is the German company Vara, which is developing a technology that will provide more accurate cancer diagnostics using machine learning. Other examples from the list are American Caption Health, which integrates ultrasound technology and artificial intelligence, and Woebot, which makes an AI-assisted app that will support mental illness.

Another technological development that we have only seen the beginning of is remote healthcare. A company that works with it is represented on the list by British Proximie, which has developed a platform for doctors to collaborate virtually worldwide.

Here are all the companies that work with health or life science on the Impact 100 list:

Ada Health (Tyskland)

Arpeggio Bio (USA)

Bionaut Labs (USA)

Caption Health (USA)

Cellino (USA)

Deep Genomics, Inc. (Kanada)

Ellipsis Health (USA)

Neurotrack (USA)

Prellis Biologics (USA)

Proximie (Storbritannien)

Scipher Medicine (USA)