We are proud to share the successful closing of the DIGIT-PRE project and to reflect on the impact this collaboration has delivered for European digital health innovation.
DIGIT-PRE set out to strengthen European digital health innovation by supporting SMEs developing solutions for prevention, prediction, and remote care, to reduce pressure on health systems in the post-COVID context. The project built a demand-driven, interregional innovation model, connecting real healthcare needs with digital solutions and enabling cross-regional collaboration across ten European regions.
Its relevance lay in translating concrete health system challenges into scalable, market-ready digital health innovations. A key challenge the project addressed was that many SMEs focus on healthcare-relevant digital solutions without developing regulated medical devices, which creates specific constraints in value demonstration, adaption, and customer orientation. DIGIT-PRE responded with a model that helped translate concrete health system challenges into market-ready innovation.
Within this context, our colleagues at Syreon Research Institute contributed a structured yet pragmatic perspective by embedding Health Technology Assessment (HTA)–informed thinking into an ecosystem largely dominated by technology-driven approaches. Our role focused on translating HTA principles into a non-regulatory, innovation-friendly framework that enabled SMEs to clearly articulate value for healthcare decision-makers even when their solutions were not classified as medical devices.
Through this work, we supported SMEs to:
- Frame their solutions around health system relevance and decision-maker needs,
- Demonstrate value beyond technical performance, focusing on outcomes, efficiency, and organisational impact,
- Align product development with real customer and payer expectations, despite operating outside formal medical device pathways.
These principles were embedded across DIGIT-PRE’s service catalogues, gap-oriented support framework, and Innovation Support Program, ensuring that customer-focused value creation remained a central design constraint throughout the project.
DIGIT-PRE successfully supported 12 interregional sub-projects involving 26 SMEs, with several companies reaching high technology and market readiness (TRL 8–9). More broadly, the project demonstrated that HTA-informed, value-driven communication can meaningfully support early-stage digital health innovation, even beyond traditional regulatory frameworks.
The journey does not end here. DIGIT-PRE’s tools, methodologies, and networks will continue through the OpenDoors initiative, while consortium partners — including Syreon — are actively preparing new EU-supported proposals to further scale and formalise this approach.
We thank our partners and SMEs for the collaboration and shared ambition to strengthen value-driven digital health innovation across Europe.
Find out more about the project here: https://www.digit-pre.eu/
