Health Tech Sessions – Hardware & AI reveals first speakers for 2026
23 juni 2026
Discover the companies, technologies and investment questions driving the next generation of health tech. From medical devices and sensors to health AI, diagnostics, robotics and hardware-driven care, the programme looks at what it takes to build technology that works, gets validated, survives the market and earns trust in healthcare.
Building a health venture without losing yourself
Hanne Callewaert
Co-founder and CEO of AstriVax Therapeutics
Hanne Callewaert is co-founder and CEO of AstriVax, a Leuven-based biotech company developing a vaccine and immunotherapy platform. AstriVax builds on technology developed at the Rega Institute at KU Leuven and aims to develop vaccines and immunotherapies that are easier to produce, less dependent on demanding cold chain logistics, and able to offer broad and long-lasting protection.
In this session, Hanne joins not only as a tech CEO, but as the person behind the venture: founder, leader, mother and human being navigating the pressure of building a health company where science, capital, team and personal life all demand attention at the same time.
Building AI that doctors use and patients trust
Wim Van Hecke
Founder and CEO of Icometrix
AI in healthcare is only meaningful when it is used and trusted by the people it is meant to support.
Wim Van Hecke is joined by a doctor using icobrain and a patient using icompanion. icometrix is a Leuven-based health tech company developing AI-powered brain imaging software for neurological care. Its technology helps clinicians extract more objective insights from brain scans, while icompanion gives patients, particularly people living with multiple sclerosis, a more active role in understanding and following up their condition.
Together, they explore what happens when AI moves from the lab into the consultation room.
Rebuilding bodies, rebuilding lifes
Bart Van Der Schueren
Chief Technology Officer of Materialise
Bart Van der Schueren, CTO of Materialise, explains how one of the Leuven Innovation Region’s flagship companies uses health tech to create direct human impact. Materialise is globally known for 3D printing, medical planning, advanced manufacturing, and personalized healthcare.
In this session, Bart will share how Materialise uses its expertise at the intersection of hardware, software, AI-enabled workflows and health tech to create impact beyond the lab, the factory or the hospital.
Through a use case linked to Ukrainian veterans, he will show how technology can support people recovering from war injuries, limb loss and complex trauma, and how innovation becomes meaningful when it helps people regain function, confidence and quality of life.
Health AI is 20% Technology
In this session, Marko and Urbain Vandeurzen meet for a conversation about building health technology from Leuven, scaling internationally and understanding what really determines success when the product, the market and the patient reality are complex.
Marko Topalovic
Founder & former CEO of ArtiQ / Chief AI Officer at Clario
Marko Topalovic, founder of ArtiQ, joins Urbain Vandeurzen for a conversation between two generations of Leuven technology entrepreneurship. ArtiQ developed AI-powered software for respiratory medicine, helping medical professionals interpret lung function data and support better diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of patients with lung diseases.
After its acquisition by Clario in 2024, ArtiQ became part of a broader international platform for clinical trials and respiratory solutions. With Clario now part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, the story raises a sharper question: what does it take for Leuven-born health AI to become trusted at global scale?
Urbain Vandeurzen
Co-founder, chairman and CEO of LMS and founder of Smile Invest
Urbain Vandeurzen is one of the most respected technology entrepreneurs and investors in the Leuven Innovation Region. He was co-founder, chairman and CEO of LMS, which was acquired by Siemens in 2012, and later founded Smile Invest. Through his entrepreneurial and investment work, Urbain has been involved in the growth of several technology, industrial and life sciences companies.
Urbain Vandeurzen brings a rare long-term perspective to that question. He understands that scaling technology is never just about the product.
It is about timing, credibility, capital, market access, strategic buyers and the human relationships that make growth possible.
Should Europe innovate at US/China speed?
Europe likes to see itself as precise, responsible and high-quality. But is that enough when the US and China are innovating, scaling and commercialising at a different speed?
In this panel, Vincent Hiligsmann from Melexis and Prof. Dorien Emmers from KU Leuven explore what innovation speed really means for European companies in hardware, AI and health tech.
Vincent Hiligsmann
Chief Innovations Officer at Melexis
Vincent Hiligsmann is Chief Innovations Officer at Melexis, a global supplier of micro-electronic semiconductor solutions. Melexis develops sensor and driver technologies for applications including mobility, robotics and advanced industrial systems. In our panel, Vincent brings the perspective of a European hardware company working internationally to accelerate innovation, scale production and respond to fast-moving markets.
His perspective connects hardware, sensors and the technical building blocks that can make future health applications possible.
Prof. Dorien Emmers
Assistant Professor in Chinese Studies and Economics at KU Leuven
Prof. Dorien Emmers is Assistant Professor in Chinese Studies and Economics at KU Leuven and an affiliated research scholar at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions. Her work focuses on China’s economy, society and development. In our panel conversation, she brings a grounded view on China’s innovation system, its economic conditions, its technological priorities and the way European companies should interpret China’s speed without becoming naïve.
Why health tech capital is different
A sharp panel on why funding health tech, AI and hardware-driven innovation is harder, slower and more complex than in many other sectors, told through both successful and difficult founder journeys.
In this panel, Herman Verrelst, Charlotte D’Hulst and Bart Van Pee explore why capital behaves differently in health tech through different perspectives.
Together, they will unpack the specific funding logic of health tech: why it takes longer, why the risks are different, why some promising companies do not make it, and why others become strategically valuable to global players.
Herman Verrelst
Founding partner and senior advisor at Heran Partners and involved in Gynaia
Herman Verrelst is a seasoned health tech entrepreneur, executive and investor with deep experience in molecular diagnostics, medtech, healthtech and company building. He is founding partner and senior advisor at Heran Partners, a European investment fund focused on medtech and healthtech, and is also involved in Gynaia, a women’s health diagnostics company building on research from KU Leuven, UZ Leuven and international clinical expertise.
Herman brings the perspective of someone who has worked across the full health tech value chain: building companies, scaling diagnostics, investing in innovation and understanding what it takes to make complex health technology investable.
Charlotte D'Hulst
Entrepreneur, former co-founder and CEO of Yesse Technologies and Portfolio Director - Life Sciences at imec
Charlotte brings the reality of a venture-backed biotech journey that raised capital and built strong partnerships, but was ultimately wound down.
She brings a rare and honest perspective: what it means to build something almost impossibly ambitious, attract belief and capital, carry the responsibility as a founder, and still have to acknowledge that strong technology, funding and partnerships are not always enough to reach the finish line.
Bart Van Pee
Founder of Ectosense
Bart brings the perspective of a founder who did manage to bring a regulated health technology company to a successful acquisition, working at the intersection of software, medical devices, clinical adoption and international market access.
How Coultreon pulled off a $145M Series A
Pieter Peeters
Co-founder and Operating & Technology Officer at Coultreon Biopharma
Before joining Coultreon, Pieter served as Head of Discovery Sciences at Galapagos, where he led global teams supporting small molecule and cell therapy discovery across the R&D portfolio. He also helped build and deploy AI-based platforms to enhance early development capabilities and accelerate decision-making.
Pieter Peeters takes us behind the scenes of Coultreon’s record-breaking $125 million Series A, from scientific promise and payroll pressure to international investor confidence. This session is about understanding the road towards it:
How do you go from a promising therapeutic idea to a financing round of this scale? How do you convince international investors that your science, team and timing are strong enough? And how do you keep moving when, only months earlier, you are still wondering how long you can keep paying salaries?
The line-up continues to grow
Health Tech Sessions’ is the name of the two-day B2B health programme of FTI Leuven 2026.
On Wednesday 21 October, the focus is on Hardware & AI: the technologies, companies and investment challenges behind the next generation of health tech.
On Thursday 22 October, the programme shifts to Life Sciences, with a different set of questions around medical breakthroughs, translation and patient care. More speakers and programme details will be announced soon.
Tickets now available
Want to join Health Tech Sessions – Hardware & AI on Wednesday 21 October 2026 in Leuven? Book your ticket for this focused B2B day.
Tickets are day-specific. A ticket for ‘Health Tech Sessions – Hardware & AI’ gives access to the programme on Wednesday 21 October only. To attend ‘Health Tech Sessions – Life Sciences’ on Thursday 22 October, a separate ticket is required.
