InnoStars at MIT4LS 2026: connecting health data, innovators and European regions

Alessio Smeraldo, Peter Nagy and Balint Mihok represented InnoStars at Meet in Italy for Life Sciences 2026 in Rome on 13 – 14 October. Through HeliX and BRIDGE, two projects in which InnoStars is a partner, the team joined discussions on health data, reviewed progress with consortium partners and celebrated emerging life sciences innovations.

Meet in Italy for Life Sciences (MIT4LS) brought together companies, researchers, institutions, investors and innovation ecosystems from Europe and beyond. For InnoStars, the event connected two complementary areas of its work: helping promising innovations develop and strengthening the partnerships needed to bring them into use across European regions.

HeliX: reviewing progress and building a sustainable ecosystem

On 13 October, HeliX partners gathered for a closed General Assembly to review the project’s first year, discuss implementation challenges and agree on priorities for the months ahead.

HeliX aims to help researchers and innovators make better use of health data while protecting privacy. Its approach combines federated learning and privacy-preserving technologies, enabling AI models to learn from data held by different organisations without moving that data from its original location. The ambition is to support research and innovation across fragmented health databases, with potential applications ranging from advanced diagnostics to personalised treatments.

Within HeliX, InnoStars’ responsibilities include leading business and operational development and coordinating funding schemes designed to bring additional small and medium-sized enterprises into the project’s value chain, particularly from less developed regions. These activities are intended to support the platform’s wider adoption and long-term sustainability.

“The General Assembly gave us an opportunity to review HeliX’s first-year progress and agree, as a consortium, on the priorities ahead. At InnoStars, our focus is on ensuring that the platform’s development is matched by a viable business model and a realistic path to adoption, while creating concrete opportunities for SMEs, particularly from less developed European regions, to contribute to the HeliX ecosystem.” Balint Mihok, InnoStars

BRIDGE: recognising progress in life sciences innovation

On 14 October, teams supported through the Genesis4LifeScience acceleration programme, organised by ALISEI with InnoStars specifically managing the BRIDGE track,  presented their solutions and progress to a jury during the final pitching session, following mentoring support throughout the programme. HELICURE from Spain received the award from ALISEI in the BRIDGE track, , recognising its pitch and innovative approach. The session highlighted the potential of cross-regional acceleration programmes to help emerging health and life sciences teams develop their solutions and communicate their value. For InnoStars, as a BRIDGE partner, the session was an opportunity to see the participating teams’ progress and connect with the wider community supporting their development.

“Promising life sciences teams need access to expertise, partners and opportunities beyond their own regions. Through BRIDGE, InnoStars helps connect regional ecosystems and innovators with the support they need to develop their ideas. The final pitching session in Rome showed how teams had built on the mentoring they received.Alessio Smeraldo, InnoStars

Health data: turning shared challenges into opportunities for collaboration

The programme on 14 October also included the I3 Health Task Force workshop, “Health Data Governance in Europe: The Power of Data Spaces”. Representatives of HeliX, BRIDGE, SAGE-HUB, BIO-RED and other EU projects came together to discuss how secure, scalable data infrastructure could support cross-border health research and innovation.

The workshop explored data governance, Data Spaces and interoperability, alongside the technical, regulatory and organisational barriers that can limit the use of health data. Discussions considered how collaboration between European regions could connect complementary expertise and infrastructure to address these challenges.

HeliX contributed two expert presentations.

• Antal Kuthy of E-Group delivered the keynote “The Sovereign Data Infrastructure: Enabling Trust and Scalability across Europe”.
• Marco Aiello of Synlab – SDN presented “Multimodal Data Platforms for European Research: Scaling Advanced Diagnostics”.

Montse Daban from Biocat also contributed, bringing insights from BRIDGE. These contributions connected the broader discussion on European health data infrastructure with HeliX’s ambition to enable privacy-preserving research and innovation across organisations and borders.

Peter Nagy also represented InnoStars in the workshop, with a contribution entitled “Accelerating Sustainable and Digital Transformation in Biotech and Pharmaceuticals”. Bringing perspectives from BIO-RED, BRIDGE, HeliX and VALUEMAP, he highlighted the importance of connecting European innovation ecosystems to support this transformation.

“Digital and sustainable transformation in biotech and pharmaceuticals requires collaboration between regions, industries and research communities. This is where InnoStars brings particular value: through our reach across Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, we connect regional innovation ecosystems and complementary expertise. Projects such as HeliX, BRIDGE, BIO-RED and VALUEMAP put this into practice, helping promising solutions move beyond individual projects and regions towards wider adoption across Europe.” – Peter Nagy, InnoStars

Strengthening connections across the life sciences community

Alongside the project sessions, the InnoStars team joined the MIT4LS networking dinner on 13 October. The evening brought opportunities to exchange perspectives with innovators, support organisations and industry representatives, establish new connections and explore potential collaborations.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the thor(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EISMEA Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.