About

The estimated global cost of injuries in professional sports (including major leagues) is $16 billion per annum. In past seasons wages of inactive players from injuries were €250 million in Premier League, €312 million in NBA, and €1.3 billion in MLB. Evidently, sports science has become a huge part of the industry today. Apart from direct costs such as salaries of inactive players, medical practitioners, sports physicians, and potential hospitalization, there are also societal costs like insurance costs and social costs related to the burden of psychological trauma. 70% of the injuries are no-contact, wear injuries that could have been predicted. Another important aspect is the increase of sports-related injuries of the youth population, either on amateur or competitive levels. Medinevo offers a biomechanical injury prevention tool for professional athletes who often experience muscle injuries. Medinevo's product purpose is to prevent injuries and facilitate the rehabilitation process. The accompanying software product assists experts in predicting injuries in athletes with high accuracy, providing information such as 3D visualization, topology, muscle condition and potential injury index for each individual athlete.

Solution & Product

Medinevo offers the 1st injury prevention solution for high performing athletes based on personalized bio-engineering analysis. Its novelty is based on a unique approach combining cutting-edge advancements in the fields of biomechanics, medical science, AI, data science and computational engineering. The product is designed with the purpose to predict and prevent non-contact soft-tissue injuries and to monitor muscle strain for each athlete so that the training program can be adapted to maximize performance. The required inputs for each athlete are a once-off MRI scan and his/her daily GPS tracking data. A personalized 3D digital twin is constructed based on the geometry from the MRI & GPS data are converted into ‘‘bioengineering’’ input through a series of AI modules. Via a Muscle Mechanical Simulation Model, personalized stress-strain profiles are generated with injury risk thresholds. A 3D visualization of the muscles is provided, tracking the areas of maximum load concentration and risk of failure.

Innovation & Scalability

Medinevo’s solution moves ahead of the curve of its industry, making a breakthrough in monitoring athletes’ muscle strain and, thus, preventing sports injuries. It is the first time that monitoring of training load goes beyond the sole employment of statistical and AI methods to detect patterns. In detail, up to today, solutions for injury prevention rely on the capturing of patterns relating workload intensity with past injury occurrences, without any reference to the specific mechanism involved or without indicating the type of injury predicted. Medinevo’s solution is providing unprecedented insight in the muscles’ condition of each athlete separately, offering both injury risk assessments based on personalized muscle-specific stress-strain behavior profiles as well as 3D visualization with localization of areas in risk. The offered solution is per se scalable as it relies on the establishment of an algorithmic process based on biomechanical concepts and the application of ANN solutions. Two factors are further defining the scalability; first the processing of the MRI images which is planned to be automated and second the utilization of additional resources to provide cloud capacity when requests loads grow. Medinevo’s plan is to have 3 European Football Clubs as early adopters in 2021 and 16 clubs in the early maturity stage (2022). In 2023, Medinevo will expand in markets outside Europe, starting with North America and Asia in 2023.

Traction & achievements

2019: June: Medinevo was admitted to the EGG (Enter-Grow-Go) programme accelerator for start-ups, a Eurobank CSR Initiative. Dr. Papakostas, then Head of Medical at PAOK F.C. and now at Orthopaedic Surgeon at Aspetar Sports Medicine Hospital, joined the Team as a CMO. Medinevo also got the 1st award from the ‘‘Proof of Concept’’ Programme of Patras Science Park. Dr. Gerasopoulos, Research Director at NOA, joined as a CRO. 2020: February: Patent Application at the European Patent Office. March: Engagement with Pan-Hellenic Professional Football Players Association (PSAP) for Investigation and Pilot Case Studies. June-October: Completion of the Artificial Neural Network for translating GPS tracking data to muscle loading. August 2020-January 2021: Participation as a use case provider in an Intelligent end-to-end project proposal within a consortium including Manchester University, La Sapienza, KTM, OdinS. November-December: Pilot Case Applications with 3 Professional Football Clubs. January 2021: participation in a proposal as an end-user in a consortium for an innovative HPC solution together with the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology January-February 2021: First billing of services to 2 Greek Football Clubs, one of which is an academy-oriented club directed by a sports science professional certified for injury prevention programmes.

Team & Why Us

Mrs Pomakidou’s research experience in NTUA, BRFAA&NOA has focused in Mathematical and Computational Modeling of human tissue mechanical behaviour.She leads the R&D with a hands-on role in business decisions and communications with stakeholders.Mr. Theodoridis is an international Business Developer with 15y of experience in Executive Management. He leads the commercialization and builds the business model.Dr. Papakostas is an orthopaedic surgeon globally recognised in elite sports medicine.He strategically guides in product development and manages relationships with peers KOLs in sports clubs.Dr. Gerasopoulos has >20y. research work and experience as a principal investigator and coordinator of international and national projects.He oversees research activities and strategic design of R&D.Dr. Moutzouri has lenghty experience in the European Industry, working in (pre-)clinical investigations and in the Marketing&Sales of personalised treatments. She works as Biomedical Liaison Officer.

Funding Needs

750.000€, in order to optimize the App, complete pilot cases and boost the commercialization.