Computer simulations of brain surgery: inSteps secures two grants for this
Publication date: 28-09-2026
The inSteps team: bottom left, Henk Marquering (Amsterdam UMC) and bottom right, CEO Thomas Kerbusch
inSteps has everything it needs to test new medical technology virtually. On as many as thousands of ‘synthetic’ patients! This is particularly good news for stroke procedures, where instruments are crucial for removing blood clots from the brain.
Thrombectomy instruments are specifically used in stroke treatment. However, the development of these instruments is costly, time-consuming and heavily reliant on animal models. Unfortunately, these models do a poor job of predicting how an instrument will perform in the human body.
inSteps tackles these problems with computer simulations. The innovative company was founded following pioneering research at Amsterdam UMC.
How exactly does inSteps work? “Using one of the world’s largest stroke databases, we test how thrombectomy instruments interact with vascular anatomy and blood clots in ‘thousands of synthetic’ patients. This enables manufacturers of medical innovations to test their designs more quickly. Even before physical prototypes are built!” explains Ruben Boyd, who was closely involved in developing the business plan as a business developer at Amsterdam UMC.
And now inSteps has secured two grants (in the form of convertible loans): the European EIC-AIC EU grant of €300,000 and €450,000 from the Innovatiefonds Noord-Holland.
Ruben Boyd comments: “Whilst we were taking part in the NWO Venture Challenge, I realised this was a challenging but promising case. It’s great to see that this team is still full of enthusiasm and that, partly thanks to an IXA Proof-of-Concept loan, they have reached this promising stage. This is very good news for stroke patients.”
inSteps aims to offer its simulation platform to medical technology manufacturers worldwide.
About the origins of the university spin-out inSteps
inSteps B.V. is a spin-out from Amsterdam UMC, founded in 2023 by Dr Thomas Kerbusch, Prof. Dr Henk Marquering, Dr Praneeta Konduri and Dr Nerea Arrarte. The company grew out of more than ten years of academic research within several academic consortia. The company now consists of a five-person team of biomedical engineers and AI specialists (the CEO is Thomas Kerbusch).
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