New therapeutics for Parkinson’s disease, exoskeletons for people with spinal cord injuries, solutions to help manage chronic respiratory conditions: the Healthcare Week Luxembourg awards aim to highlight groundbreaking initiatives that drive innovation and progress in the healthcare sector. The 12 finalists of the 2025 edition of the Healthcare Week Luxembourg awards will be invited to the HWL conference at Luxexpo The Box in the fall, which will bring together professionals from the health, research, education and technology sectors, as well as representatives from the government and social and professional organisations.

Here are the nominees for each category. The winners will be announced at the HWL gala dinner on 7 October 2025.

Startups in Luxembourg

Meracle Health: a spinoff from the National University of Singapore and a graduate of Luxinnovation’s Fit 4 Start accelerator programme, Meracle Health has developed “Whizz,” an intuitive solution to improve the daily management of chronic respiratory conditions. Founded in 2018, the startup aims to provide patients with the tools to optimise the delivery of medication and a platform to monitor their intake, condition and progress. The company in 2021 was one of four projects selected by the ministry of the economy, the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) and Luxinnovation to receive financial support for its R&D.

Organotherapeutics: the mission of this startup is to accelerate the development of therapeutics against neurodegeneration. Its current focus is Parkinson’s disease, which causes nerve cells in the brain to weaken, become damaged and die, leading to symptoms that include problems with movement, tremor, stiffness and impaired balance. The team--made up of eight people at the University of Luxembourg--works on cell culture models, organoids and assembloids that replicate the Parkinson’s pathology and--to an extent--cannot be found in any other cell culture or animal model, explains the company. selected to pitch their companies to a jury in May 2025 in a bid to make it to the next phase of EY’s Startup World Cup; .

Esklepios: designed by two Luxembourg doctors--Fabien Cipriani and Jean-François Michel--Esklepios is a “comprehensive practice management software designed to optimise the workflow of medical practices, clinics and healthcare professionals,” says the company. Its “system integrates patient management, clinical documentation, appointment scheduling and financial operations into a unified platform.”

Medical innovation

Exoatlet Global: the Luxembourg company develops wearable and industrial exoskeletons for patients with spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy or traumatic brain injuries and those recovering from a stroke or from arthroplasty. “Our mission is to make exo-rehabilitation with our exoskeletons accessible for everyone,” says the company. “We bring quality changes into the lives of people with disabilities, make healthy people strong and provide scientists with reliable tools to empower research.”

Biomérieux Benelux: with teams present in 45 countries and serving more than 160 countries through a large network of distributors, “Biomérieux provides diagnostic solutions (systems, reagents, software and services) that determine the origin of a disease to improve the health of patients,” explains the company. Lumed, for instance, “offers advanced clinical decision support tools for antimicrobial stewardship and infection prevention. It helps healthcare providers identify non-optimal antibiotic prescriptions and monitor healthcare-associated infections, enhancing clinical workflows and patient outcomes.”

International Electronics & Engineering (IEE): though it’s more well-known for its innovations in the automotive field, the company also provides sensing solutions and electronics manufacturing services for the building management and security and healthtech sectors. For example, “our smart sensors fit numerous applications, from wearable medical devices and footwear to bike saddles for high performance sports,” says the firm, which was founded in 1989 and is based in Bissen. IEE last December in the “product” category for its laminated busbar connector, which aims to optimise the performance of electric vehicle batteries and energy storage systems.

Managerial innovation

Rehazenter (Centre National de Rééducation Fonctionnelle et de Réhabilitation, Luxembourg): the Rehazenter provides “inpatient and outpatient care in the treatment, functional rehabilitation and rehabilitation of people who have suffered an accident,” says the centre. It also initiates and continues scientific clinical research programmes in functional rehabilitation and aims to be a centre of education in the field of rehabilitation.

CHU Liège (Belgium): the CHU Liège is a public, pluralistic university hospital. It is one of seven Belgian academic hospitals and the only academic hospital in Wallonia.

Transforming Theatre Health Service Executive (HSE), southwest region (Ireland): using a data-driven approach, “the programme identifies opportunities to improve how surgical theatres are used. This ensures [operating] theatres are operating as efficiently as possible and procedures are carried out in the most appropriate setting, freeing up theatre time so that more patients can be seen,” explains the programme on its website. “One of our aims was to improve patient flow through the operating theatre, by providing a structured quality improvement methodology to achieve tangible improvements. The programme took a multidisciplinary approach, helping to engage nursing, anaesthesiology and surgical staff in operating theatre departments to identify and address the barriers to being more efficient,” adds professor Deborah McNamara, clinical lead, HSE National Clinical Programme for Surgery.

Startups in Europe

Remma (France): this startup is a marketplace that specialises in secondhand, refurbished and guaranteed medical and surgical equipment. It aims to simplify the buying and selling of these devices.

Tune Insight (Switzerland): data in the health sector is “both an invaluable asset and a sensitive resource to manipulate,” says the company. “Its use is crucial to advancing medical research, developing new treatments and improving care. However, legitimate concerns about confidentiality, strict regulations and ethical issues are holding back progress.” To tackle these obstacles, the startup “aims to create a secure and federated space for the analysis of health data in Switzerland.” Its mission is to “revolutionise the data economy into an ‘insight’ economy where medical innovation is based on ethical and secure collaboration.”

MPC Therapeutics (Switzerland): a spinoff from the University of Geneva, the startup’s mission is “to develop innovative products that enhance cell fitness, stemness and performance. Our goal is to enable our partners to unlock the full potential of their cell therapies by reliably producing efficient and durable cell therapy products.” Its main solution is MitostemX, which enhances the fitness and persistence of T cells, white blood cells that play an important role in the body’s immune system. The company is also working on improving the fitness and therapeutic potential of mesenchymal stem cells (which can differentiate into a variety of cell types) and of hematopoietic stem cells (which can develop into different kinds of blood cells). The biotech in October 2024 thanks to a partnership with the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH).

Conference to take place 7-8 October

HWL 2025 will explore the opportunities and challenges of artificial intelligence in ethics and governance, research and innovation, management and organisation, and teaching and training. The agenda features eight panels over two days--7 and 8 October--and is organised by the Luxembourg Hospital Federation (FHL) in collaboration with Quinze Mai.