The first transfer project worked on by InnovationLab GmbH, under the name of NephroCare, was based in the area of medical technology and aimed towards a revolutionary solution for the kidney function measurement market, which has been insufficiently addressed up to now. NephroCare had its origins in the many years of research carries out by scientists at Heidelberg University. In 2008 and up to the end of 2009, InnovationLab GmbH drove potential commercialization f the project forwards, in particular through the creation of an appropriate business plan and the initiation of business contacts. Following the successful completion of this phase of the project NephroCare was passed on in a different form to the Institute for Medical Technology at Heidelberg University and Hochschule Mannheim at the beginning of 2010.
Worldwide, incidences of terminal kidney failure are increasing rapidly. Identifying the onset of a chronic kidney disease at an early stage is a prerequisite for adequate therapeutic intervention. The methods currently used are either precise and extremely complicated, or simple to conduct but very inaccurate.
NephroCare is a solution to the trade-off between precision and easy operability. It satisfies the need for a method of diagnosing kidney diseases from an early stage which is both simple and precise.