TrianecT receives €250,000 NWO Take-off 2 for groundbreaking stroke triage device

TrianecT is a company developing a breakthrough stroke triage device for patients with acute stroke to be used directly in the ambulance. The funding allows TrianecT to accelerate its mission to bring every stroke patient as quickly as possible to the right hospital for treatment. With a speedy diagnosis in place, patient outcome will be improving drastically.

“In the NWO take-off project, TrianecT will continue expanding our team to further develop the components of our breakthrough medical device as well as our quality management system for regulatory compliance.” Wouter Potters, CEO of TrianecT 

Improving treatment through early triage

Each year, 10 million severe stroke patients are picked up by ambulances around the world. Half of these stroke patients can be treated with endovascularly, but this needs to be done as quickly as possible at the right type of hospital. At the moment, a big group of patients are brought to hospitals that do not have endovascular treatment. This results in an average delay of endovascular treatment of 90 minutes, which leads to seriously worsened disease outcomes and a larger burden on society.  

TrianecT’s diagnostic triage cap

TrianecT is developing a special cap that combines brain activity measurement (EEG or brain film) and artificial intelligence to detect these treatable stroke patients in the ambulance and bring them directly to the best place for treatment. 

Neurologist Jonathan Coutinho, clinical technologist Wouter Potters and professor of radiology Henk Marquering from Amsterdam UMC are the inventors of the smart cap. In 2018, Wouter Potters and Jonathan Coutinho received, among other honours, the Amsterdam Science and Innovation Award and funding from the Heart Foundation to develop their innovative idea into a prototype. The stroke triage cap was tested in practice between 2018 and 2022: twelve ambulances used the medical aid and collected data from approximately 400 patients. 

About NWO Take-off 

Take-off, the funding instrument available to all scientific fields, encourages activity and entrepreneurship within the Dutch knowledge institutions. With this instrument, academic entrepreneurs can bring their innovative research results to the market. Take-off is one of the instruments for knowledge utilisation which NWO implements together with ZonMw (The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development). Visit NWO website