Technical experts who developed a tool designed for orthopedic surgeons, recently graduated health engineers, early-stage startup founders — such is the already impressive journey of Jonas Marchal and Marius Joly, the two young entrepreneurs behind BIOEASE.
Jonas Marchal and Marius Joly were clearly born under the sign of innovation! They belong to the third cohort of ECAM Brussels’ Health Engineering program. During their studies, they developed a tool intended for use in the operating room. In 2023, they didn’t even wait until the end of their master’s thesis to join the 8th edition of the Medtech Accelerator and embark on their entrepreneurial journey. They are currently developing the first spin-off originating from a higher education institution in Brussels, rather than from a university as is usually the case.
Synergy between hospital and school
For the two aspiring entrepreneurs, the adventure began during their first year of their master’s degree, when they responded to a proposal from an orthopedic surgeon at a Brussels university hospital.
“The Health Engineering master’s program at ECAM is carried out in collaboration with various surgeons who submit real needs,” they explain. “Some of these requests are studied, become projects or master’s theses, remain within the academic framework, lead to a scientific publication — or even to the creation of a startup, as in our case.”
Through CERDECAM (ECAM’s research center), they worked on the design of a highly useful instrument for certain orthopedic procedures.
“It’s a physical tool — a cutting guide placed on the bone to guide the surgeon’s blade when cutting the tendon insertion,” they explain. “We don’t cut the tendon itself, but a small bone segment where the tendon is attached. The cutting guide is positioned, and the surgeon cuts exactly what is needed. Adjustments can be made to adapt to each patient.”
Technology and business
The project is all the more promising as there is currently no competition in Europe, and the devices available on the U.S. market present several major drawbacks. However, the road to bringing BIOEASE’s cutting guide into operating rooms for live patients is still long and highly regulated.
This hasn’t discouraged the two future entrepreneurs, who are now delighted to have joined the Medtech Accelerator at such an early stage.
“Its main contribution is solid business training — something we were sorely lacking, coming from an industrial engineering background and being 100% focused on technical aspects,” they say enthusiastically. “We had to start from scratch, as we had very little business knowledge. We didn’t know how to build a company or assess the feasibility of an idea.
We quickly realized that the initial application wasn’t sufficient to justify creating a company — the market was too small. So we took a step back. We had to adapt the concept to many more applications and explore ways to increase the number of potential procedures using our tool. But European regulations limit how much we can broaden our target. Each device must correspond to a specific anatomical area. For now, we’ve found a balance and standardized two or three procedures depending on how they’re defined.”
A taste for entrepreneurship
Jonas Marchal and Marius Joly have truly caught the entrepreneurial bug.
Jonas explains:
“Becoming a business owner was already a path I had been considering before this opportunity arose. So I didn’t hesitate for a second to jump on it.”
Marius adds:
“During internships at ECAM, I was able to explore different environments, and I quickly realized that what would suit me best was starting my own business and managing my company. The idea had already begun to take shape.”
They have spared no effort to make BIOEASE a reality: meeting numerous surgeons, going on a study trip to the United States, securing a proof-of-concept grant from Innoviris, and more recently obtaining funding through Innoviris’ spin-off program — all while staying in close contact with the lifetech.brussels cluster team.
“On a daily basis, the network and contacts we’ve built there are extremely useful,” they say. “We remain in touch with several people we met during the Accelerator who can quickly point us in the right direction whenever we face an issue. For example, we needed two industrial sponsors to apply for a startup grant, and we met one of them through the Accelerator.”
Future outlook
The two young entrepreneurs plan to officially launch their spin-off at the end of 2026, once they complete the Innoviris spin-off program and obtain the regulatory approval required to use the device.
All of this will be based in Brussels — the capital of Europe and an ideal hub for international expansion. As they explain:
“The procedures that can benefit from our guide are not frequent enough for us to limit commercialization to Brussels or Belgium. Our goal is to collaborate with hospitals all across Europe.”
Website: https://bioease.dcms.site/
