The Digital Garden wraps up its second harvest after nine intense and fruitful months of collaborative work among the startups, Almirall’s in-house mentors and the program’s partners.

I cannot start this post any other way: a big and heartfelt congratulations to both the startups and to my mentor colleagues at Almirall for having successfully graduated from the Digital Garden’s second harvest! Time does indeed fly when you are having fun, and it’s hard to believe that it’s already graduation time for the six start-ups and for the 19 in-house mentors.

I said fun because of course we’ve had fun, but above all we’ve had the time and space to work with one another and with our partners to keep learning and working towards a common goal: deliver digital innovation solutions that can truly make an impact to patients and healthcare professionals worldwide.

For this edition and to formalize the mentorship program, we decided to partner with ESADE Business School in Barcelona and benefit from their leadership and experience in the entrepreneurship field. I would like to also thank ESADE’s Prof. Jan Brinckmann for his time and dedication to our program and for his good humor and high energy during our sessions together.

We put together the Digital Academy program and partnered with leaders in their fields to offer top-notch practical sessions to both the startups and the employee mentors about branding, business models, product management, finance and valuation and legal and regulatory, among other topics.

I was impressed by the level of engagement and dedication that teams devoted to the program. We saw true collaboration and partnership and the innovative thinking, mindset and energy that our startups brought to the table ignited a very sought-after entrepreneurial spirit within Almirall’s mentors and teams. You all created a true partnership and this is, at the end of the day, what matters most to me, my team at the Digital Office and the whole company.

I would like to give a shout out to the startups participating in this second harvest of the incubator program: Athena Care, Ampersand, Legit, Patch.Ai, Tryl and Vila Health. Your digital health solutions have the power to have a direct impact on patients’ and healthcare professionals’ lives.

And last but not least, I am also very proud of the work that our mentor colleagues from Almirall have done during this period. They have become true digital champions within the organization and provided pharmaceutical industry insights to the startups and helped accelerate them through their next stage of growth.

When I envisioned the Digital Garden incubator program, I had a detailed business plan of how the accelerator would work, but little did I know about the journey I was about to embark on and about the inspiring people I would meet along the way. Working with each one of the startups and getting to know the brains and faces behind them has been an absolute honor. Congrats again to all of you.

The seed has been planted and I can’t wait to see it grow.

Francesca Wuttke, Chief Digital Officer

The Digital Office – Almirall