MedTech Innovation 2025 Helsinki Summit
The global healthcare landscape stands at a pivotal inflexion point, defined by unprecedented technological advancement and a surging wave of innovation. In this dynamic environment, a new breed of event is needed—one that transcends the traditional conference model to become a true catalyst for progress.
The inaugural MedTech Innovation 2025 Helsinki Summit, scheduled for November 18, 2025, in the vibrant city of Helsinki, is a meticulously crafted, one-day Summit meticulously crafted to accelerate European medical technology from its nascent, scientific phase to a point of global patient impact. MedTech Innovation 2025 Helsinki Summit is poised to be a strategic nexus where vision, capital, and expertise converge to forge a healthier future for all.
The mission is to unite Europe’s most promising health and MedTech innovations with the strategic investors and critical regulatory expertise they need to succeed. While Europe boasts a rich ecosystem of brilliant scientific minds and groundbreaking startups, the path from discovery to market can be fragmented.
The Summit is a direct response to that reality, co-organised by EIC ecosystem partner inXso and supported by a powerful network of collaborators, including European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA), Eurochambres, Shift-HUB, HealthTech Finland, and global media partner MedTech World. The timing of the event—a day before Europe’s largest tech and startup conference, Slush—is optimal to capture a highly curated, international audience already present in Helsinki, ensuring a high-quality, focused environment for meaningful networking and deal-making.
A New Dawn for European Health Innovation
The MedTech Innovation 2025 Helsinki Summit is born from a deep understanding of the most profound trends currently reshaping the global health and life sciences sectors. These trends form the thematic pillars of the event’s programme, making it uniquely relevant and valuable for everyone in attendance.
The AI and Digital Health Revolution: An analysis of recent venture capital trends reveals a dramatic shift in how investment is flowing into healthcare. In the first half of 2025 alone, AI-enabled startups captured a commanding 62% of all digital health venture capital funding, amounting to a significant sum, meaning that rather than being a fleeting trend, it indicates a fundamental re-architecture of the industry. Investors are making larger, more confident bets on mature, AI-driven platforms, with average deal sizes for AI-enabled startups significantly outpacing their non-AI counterparts.
The funding includes a concentration in areas that directly address the most pressing operational challenges in healthcare today, such as non-clinical and clinical workflow solutions, which together accounted for over half of all digital health funding in the first half of 2025.
Companies like Abridge and Hippocratic AI, which secured significant mega deals (over €100 million in a single round), are leading this charge, demonstrating the market’s appetite for solutions that can reduce clinician burnout and streamline complex processes. The Summit’s dedicated “Open Pitch: Digital Health & AI Innovations” session is a direct reflection of this trend, offering a platform for breakthroughs in AI-powered diagnostics, virtual care, and health data analytics. It serves as a vital scouting ground for investors and corporate partners seeking to capitalise on this revolution.
A Strategic Bridge to Innovation and Growth
For major corporations, innovation is a perpetual challenge. The Summit is a strategic bridge to the external ecosystem, providing a direct pipeline to the technologies and talent that will define the future of a company.
This is an unparalleled opportunity to scout for future talent and forge strategic partnerships.
The curated pitch sessions, particularly those on new biotech and cardiovascular therapies, are designed to present potential collaboration opportunities that align with long-term growth strategies. The presence of companies from across Europe in various innovation hubs ensures a diverse and rich pipeline.
The broader MedTech and biotech markets are being reshaped by a robust and aggressive environment for strategic acquisitions and partnerships. High-profile transactions, such as the acquisition of Shockwave Medical by Johnson & Johnson, and Novo Nordisk’s acquisition of Cardior Pharmaceuticals for over €1 billion, signal that major corporations are not solely relying on internal R&D, but are actively seeking external solutions to expand their portfolios and maintain a competitive edge.
The trend makes the Summit an indispensable tool for corporate development teams, facilitating the kind of high-value, strategic partnerships that are essential for long-term growth.
A Platform for Global Scale
The event is an opportunity to move a breakthrough from the lab to the market. The Summit is an exclusive showcase of the most promising technologies in Europe, offering an unparalleled platform to gain visibility, secure funding, and forge the partnerships required to scale.
The programme features multiple high-stakes pitching sessions. Pitches from EIC Beneficiaries in “New Biotech Platforms” and “Cardiovascular Therapies” provide a direct channel to present a company to an audience of top-tier investors and corporate partners who are actively seeking deal flow.
Furthermore, the “Open Pitch: Digital Health & AI Innovations” session offers a valuable opportunity for a select group of startups to present their solutions in areas like AI-powered diagnostics and virtual care, independent of their affiliation with the EIC ecosystem.
The Summit is a forum dedicated to “Unlocking Capital”. Through curated investor-startup matchmaking and a networking lunch, innovators have the chance for pre-scheduled, one-on-one meetings with VCs and corporate investment leads. This is where a handshake can become a term sheet, and a conversation can launch a company’s next funding round.
The Next-Generation Deal-Sourcing Platform
For investors, time is the most valuable asset. The Summit is meticulously designed to optimise it, providing a high-signal, low-noise environment for finding the next great investment.
The timing of the event, a day before the much larger and more general Slush conference, offers a powerful advantage, allowing for engagement with a highly concentrated and relevant audience before the chaos of a major conference begins.
This provides a focused, high-impact environment for building meaningful relationships and conducting serious deal-making. This curated deal flow is a game-changer, drawing on a diverse range of high-quality innovations from across the European MedTech ecosystem. The event offers privileged access to a group of EIC beneficiaries, companies recognised as Europe’s “deep tech champions” with a proven track record of securing significant funding. The Summit also features companies from the SHift-HUB ecosystem and the broader Finnish health and MedTech ecosystem, supported by Healthtech Finland. This significantly streamlines the pre-investment evaluation process, presenting a curated and highly efficient pipeline of high-potential, scalable ventures.
The engagement with a highly concentrated and relevant audience of innovators and fellow investors provides a focused, high-impact environment for building meaningful relationships and conducting serious deal-making.
Expert Guidance
Navigating the complex European regulatory and market access landscape is an existential challenge for innovators. The Summit provides direct access to senior regulatory experts and legal professionals who can help innovators understand the nuances of regulatory compliance, IP protection, and reimbursement strategies.
The fragmented nature of national markets, coupled with the intricate and constantly evolving regulatory frameworks like the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) and the In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR), presents a significant hurdle for companies looking to scale. This complexity is further compounded by a wave of new legislation designed to address the challenges of emerging technologies. The EU AI Act, for example, aims to foster responsible AI development and deployment, designating AI systems in medical devices as “high-risk” and subjecting them to strict requirements for safety, transparency, and human oversight. These systems must undergo third-party conformity assessments to ensure compliance with the AI Act as well as the MDR/IVDR.
The proposed EU Biotech Act is designed to create a more coherent, innovation-driven legal framework to streamline procedures and eliminate bottlenecks that delay a company’s time-to-market.
A new EU Regulation on Substances of Human Origin (SoHO) supports innovation by harmonising quality and safety standards for therapies and improving cross-border exchange.
Additionally, the new Health Technology Assessment Regulation (HTAR), which began to apply in early 2025, aims to facilitate a uniform decision-making basis for medical technology assessments across the EU, including joint clinical assessments and scientific consultations to guide companies on the evidence required for their clinical studies.
The Summit’s programme is specifically crafted to bridge the gap between innovation and commercial success. It directly addresses these pain points with a dedicated panel on “Navigating EU Regulatory & Market Access for MedTech,” which provides critical insights into simplifying compliance, IP protection, and reimbursement strategies.
For a more direct approach, the “Regulatory Rx” 1:1 clinics offer pre-booked consultations with senior regulatory experts and legal professionals, providing tangible solutions and actionable advice.
Meet the Global Hub of Innovation in Helsinki
The choice of Helsinki as the host city is no coincidence. The Nordic region is a hotbed of health and life sciences innovation, and Helsinki is its beating heart. The city has produced global success stories such as Oura Health and is home to promising innovators like Curify Labs, which is pioneering personalised medicine. The location for the event places it at the centre of Finland’s academic and entrepreneurial excellence. This vibrant local ecosystem provides a rich backdrop for the Summit’s international focus, creating a powerful narrative about the quality of innovation that attendees will encounter.
A partnership with the Summit is more than a simple sponsorship; it is a declaration of commitment to the future of European health innovation. By participating in panels or sponsoring key sessions, a brand can be established as a leader at the forefront of the MedTech revolution. Such a presence signals to the ecosystem that a company is a serious player actively seeking to engage with, invest in, and acquire the next generation of groundbreaking technologies.
The MedTech Innovation 2025 Helsinki Summit is an event where serendipity is replaced by a structured environment for purposeful interaction, and where a single day can create months of productive follow-up.
We invite you to join us on November 18, 2025, in Helsinki, and be a part of the movement that is accelerating European medical technology and forging a healthier future for all.
