26 Feb Kick-off EIT Health Innovation Project

The past January 30th, we officially kicked-off the ABLE Exoskeleton project, ID number 20121 within the EIT Health Innovation framework, which has been funded with a total of 2,8M€ for the 2020-2022 period. EIT Health is supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union receives support from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 Research and innovation programme.

The project will be developed by a multidisciplinary consortium of 8 partners which combine experience in business, engineering, clinical practice, design, and education: GENESIS Biomed, CREB UPC, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Eurecat, Institut Guttmann,
Heidelberg University Hosptial, Universitat de Barcelona, Madopa and ABLE Human Motion.

The kick-off meeting was held at Research Centre for Biomedical Engineering (CREB) of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC).

During the EIT Health Innovation project, we will validate and certify our ABLE exoskeleton for paraplegia. The clinical validation of the device will be performed in two renowned centres for spinal cord injury rehabilitation: Institut Guttmann (Barcelona) and Heidelberg University Hosptial (Germany). The commercialization phase is expected to begin in 2022, after obtaining the CE certification as a
medical device in late 2021.

Also, we will work on the development and validation of a homecare version of our exoskeleton, which will enable patients to continue rehabilitation at home and will promote their empowerment in the community through an autonomous ambulation.
ABLE will set a continuum care from clinics to patients’ home. It will accompany the patient through all the journey, with both the hospital product, used for gait rehabilitation, and the homecare product, to assist in Activities of Daily Living and provide means for homecare training.