Vasc-on-Demand and Würzburg spin‑offs advance after BayStartUP Northern Bavaria phase 1 win
- ›On 11 March 2025 Vasc-on-Demand, an EIC Transition beneficiary from University Hospital Würzburg, was among ten winners of the Northern Bavaria 2025 business plan competition phase 1.
- ›Vasc-on-Demand aims to commercialise artificial human blood vessels to improve 3D tissue models for drug testing and reduce reliance on animal studies.
- ›Four other Würzburg teams including ENDOLEASE, StrokeCap, ProcessBridge and LaMa Recycling Technologies also progressed to the competition's next phase.
- ›The regional wins highlight Würzburg’s growing deep tech and medtech ecosystem but translating proof of concept to market faces regulatory, manufacturing and validation hurdles.
Vasc-on-Demand and the Northern Bavaria startup wave
On 11 March 2025 Vasc-on-Demand, coordinated by University Hospital Würzburg and supported by an EIC Transition grant, was named among the ten winning teams in the first phase of the BayStartUP Northern Bavaria business plan competition. The competition selects early-stage ventures across mobility, electrical engineering, software and medical technology to help prepare them for market entry and follow-on financing. Vasc-on-Demand stood out for a technology that seeks to integrate functional human blood vessels into ready-to-use 3D tissue models used in preclinical research.
What Vasc-on-Demand is proposing
The team behind Vasc-on-Demand describes the project as developing the first commercially available artificial human blood vessel system. The stated objective is to provide functional vascularisation in three-dimensional tissue constructs so that in vitro models better predict human responses to experimental drugs. The project is framed as a way to reduce the high attrition rate in drug development and to lower reliance on animal experiments.
Technical approach and progress reported by the team
Vasc-on-Demand has shared updates on prototyping and community engagement. Their approach references sacrificial scaffolds and high-throughput moulding to create vascular channels inside tissue constructs. The team reports moving scaffold production toward vacuum casting to support scalable manufacturing. They have presented prototypes at field conferences and contributed to academic collaborations, including a publication co-supported by Osaka University.
Recognition, local momentum and team
Vasc-on-Demand is a visible part of the Würzburg startup scene. The team was featured in Gründermagazin Mainfranken 2024. It also credits EIC programmes including an EIC Tech2Market Pioneer cohort and the EIC Women Leadership Programme for coaching and networking. Team members mentioned in public posts include Alexander Radüchel, Katinka Theis, Matthias Ryma, Leanne De Silva and Patrick Kuntschke.
Short-term accolades reported by the team include a third place and the audience award at the HOCHSPRUNG competition with a cash prize of 3,000 euros. The team has been active at several conferences including the MPS World Summit, Biofabrication and other specialist meetings where they presented posters and rapid talks.
BayStartUP Northern Bavaria winners and regional context
The BayStartUP Northern Bavaria competition aims to help early-stage ventures refine business plans, receive expert feedback and prepare for market entry and financing. Ten teams won phase 1 on 11 March 2025. Four other Würzburg-based winners will continue alongside Vasc-on-Demand to phase 2.
| Team | Origin | Short description |
| Vasc-on-Demand | University Hospital Würzburg | Artificial human blood vessel system to create vascularised 3D tissue models for drug testing and research. |
| ENDOLEASE | University Hospital Würzburg | Implantable biodegradable tubular device for superselective intra-arterial drug release to reduce systemic side effects. |
| StrokeCap | University of Würzburg | Mobile, radiation-free cap using magnetic nanoparticles to measure cerebral blood flow for early stroke diagnostics in emergency care. |
| ProcessBridge | Würzburg | Combines SAP expertise with generative AI to automate test cases, documentation and training material for IT projects. |
| LaMa Recycling Technologies | SKZ Würzburg | Scalable processing to return post-industrial plastic materials to the product stream instead of disposal. |
| Better Reply | Köditz | AI platform to generate context-aware replies to online reviews across many languages. |
| BreatheAssist | FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg | Patient-mounted unit that compensates tube resistance in real time to enable 'electronic extubation' and support spontaneous breathing. |
| fiveD | FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg | Physics-based software for hyper-realistic radar simulations to accelerate sensor and AI signal processing development. |
| Rivercyte | Max Planck Centre Erlangen | High-throughput microfluidics and AI to detect neonatal infections from a drop of blood by measuring cell mechanical properties. |
| RocketMind | OTH Regensburg | App and sensor-based toy that uses evidence-based psychological exercises to boost children's resilience and emotional skills. |
What the EIC Transition label means for a project like this
Opportunities and the hard realities of translating tissue engineering to market
The promise of more predictive human-relevant tissue models is attractive to pharmaceuticals and regulators. Better in vitro vascularisation could improve preclinical screening, reduce animal testing and lower development costs if models reliably predict human responses. The European funding landscape and regional accelerators can help teams move toward regulatory studies and first customers.
Investors and corporate partners typically expect clear value propositions such as lower cost per tested compound, faster timelines, or demonstrable reductions in animal use. Early wins in business competitions and EIC backing can attract follow-on capital but do not remove the need for rigorous translational milestones and regulatory planning.
What to watch next
For Vasc-on-Demand the next phase of the BayStartUP competition should focus on market validation, regulatory strategy and industrialisation pathways. Observers should look for independent validation studies that benchmark their vascularised models against current gold standards, details about manufacturing scale-up such as their move to vacuum casting, and clarity on intellectual property and freedom to operate.
More broadly the cluster of Würzburg spin-offs progressing through regional competitions highlights how university hospitals, technical centres and incubators can seed medtech ventures. The effectiveness of that pipeline will depend on follow-up financing, quality of translational support and the ability of startups to turn technical novelty into reproducible products that customers are willing to trial and buy.
Selected milestones reported by Vasc-on-Demand
| Date | Milestone | Notes |
| May 2024 | First official workshop | Team set collaboration rules and refined tech and business plans. |
| Q1 2025 | Completed EIC Tech2Market Pioneer Programme | Training on IP, regulation and industrialisation. |
| 11 March 2025 | Won BayStartUP Northern Bavaria phase 1 | Selected among 10 teams to progress. |
| July 2025 | HOCHSPRUNG competition 3rd place and audience award | Prize of 3,000 euros reported by the team. |
| 2025 ongoing | Transitioned scaffold production to vacuum casting | Reported as a step toward scalable manufacturing. |
Conclusion
Vasc-on-Demand’s phase 1 win in the Northern Bavaria business plan competition is an encouraging sign for a laboratory spin-off with an ambitious aim to commercialise artificial human blood vessels. The project benefits from European and regional support and active engagement in academic and industry fora. At the same time the path from prototype to market-ready consumable is long and requires transparent validation, regulatory planning and production scaling. The next months will be telling for whether the team can convert technical progress and competition accolades into reproducible products that meet the needs of pharmaceutical and academic customers.