Entering EU Markets: Commercialization Challenges for Healthcare Start-ups

As part of the EIT Health RIS Hub activities in Slovakia, we are pleased to invite you to the autumn edition of Morning Health Talks, where we will explore one of the most pressing issues for emerging health ventures: how to successfully enter EU markets.

While Central and Eastern Europe is home to growing numbers of health tech founders, expanding from a local pilot to cross-border success is rarely straightforward. From navigating fragmented regulatory frameworks to securing early partnerships and funding, start-ups face multiple roadblocks when entering new markets.

To help address these challenges, Civitta Slovakia as an EIT Health representative in Slovakia is organizing EIT Health Morning Health Talks (MHT) on Wednesday, October 8, 2025 in Bratislava. 

We will open with insights from Daren Wilson from HealthSeed, a venture studio based in Zurich supporting international scale-ups in health. Daren will outline the major obstacles early-stage companies face when trying to access new EU markets, including market access pathways, compliance challenges, and readiness to scale.

We will offer a start-up perspective with a series of short presentations from Slovak and CEE health start-up founders, who will openly share the operational, financial, and regulatory challenges they’ve encountered while trying to expand beyond their home country.

We’ll highlight one start-up from a RIS (Regional Innovation Scheme) country that has successfully entered multiple EU markets. They will share their market entry success story along with key lessons on overcoming bottlenecks and building trusted partnerships along the way.

We’ll close the session with an investor perspective. Investors and VC will explain what they expect from health start-ups preparing for EU expansion, and what makes them invest.

Entering the EU market is more than just a regulatory hurdle. It’s a test of readiness, strategy, and stakeholder alignment. At Morning Health Talks Bratislava, we will unpack what works, what doesn’t, and how the healthcare innovation ecosystem can better support emerging ventures on their journey to scale.

If you have any questions about the Morning Health Talks, please contact: [email protected]

Morning Health Talks is a platform for cross-sector dialogue, uniting key players from academia, healthcare providers, start-ups, the Ministry of Health, investors, MedTech innovators, and the pharmaceutical industry. The event is designed to accelerate open innovation in healthcare by exploring models for collaboration, building strategic partnerships, and highlighting funding opportunities that support practical and impactful solutions across the sector.