Two HSE University Projects Receive Support for Commercialisation

© HSE University

At the end of August 2024, the first projects to receive funding as part of the commercialisation support measure were announced. Starting in September 2024, two projects from the HSE Faculty of Computer Science — CardioLife and Melange — were selected for financial support to aid in the commercialisation of their products and services, enabling them to enter the market.

A support facility, introduced in late 2023 to assist project teams in commercialising their products and services, whether already existing or in development, aims to significantly boost licensing revenues and help meet the targets of HSE University's Integrated Development Programme. The funding will enable two projects from the HSE Faculty of Computer Science — CardioLife and Melange — to achieve their first commercial sales in 2025–2026.

According to the project proposal, Melange is being implemented by the HSE AI and Digital Science Institute. The primary purpose of the product is to optimise pricing and forecast demand for goods with a deferred consumption pattern, particularly in the hospitality, retail, and logistics sectors.

According to the developers, Melange leverages historical customer data to automatically generate demand forecasting models and assess price sensitivity. This enables customers to increase profit margins and optimise inventory management.

The system uses machine learning algorithms to analyse customer data, sales, and other factors in order to predict future demand and tariff sensitivity, especially within the HoReCa segment. Two software products developed at the HSE AI Research Centre—'Program for Column Sampling of Data Based on Informative Feature Criteria for Time Series Forecasting' and 'Module for Server-Side Processing of Requests for Testing and Comparing Machine Learning Models'—served as the scientific groundwork for the project.

With the financial support of 4 million roubles for 2024–2025, the plan is to refine the solution's prototype and initiate the first commercial sales. The sales model envisions HSE University generating income through regular payments (royalties) from a partner (vendor) and direct license payments from large individual customers for the software modules. Post-project sales are also anticipated in the form of a range of custom improvements following the deployment and installation of the Melange software.

Vladimir Morozov

'This project began with the hypothesis that access to diverse sources of information, coupled with regular analysis, can lead to the development of algorithms that outperform human assessments of business indicators such as future cash flow and hotel reservations and cancellations. The use of such algorithms would enable organisations to make more balanced and objective decisions, significantly reducing expenses on advertising campaigns, personnel costs, and payments to third-party contractors,' according to Vladimir Morozov, Project Manager at the Unit for Applied Technological Solutions of the FCS AI and Digital Science Institute.

In his opinion, larger companies that digitised their operations long ago and regularly update their data will benefit the most from adopting this product. He believes that 'only the availability of a substantial amount of relevant data will enable the use of algorithms to improve business processes.' In smaller enterprises, the implementation of these algorithms will be less effective due to a lack of sufficient data volume. Process optimisation has the most significant impact on a large scale, where savings are immediately evident.

The first stage of the project has already helped companies participating in product testing reduce their costs, and the project team plans to expand product adoption. Therefore, securing commercialisation support from HSE University was crucial.

'This funding enables us to attract highly qualified specialists committed to the long-term development of the project, thereby reducing the risk of sudden loss of motivation among key participants,' says Vladimir Morozov. 'Securing funding has been one of the critical requirements for the project's commercialisation, and we are genuinely pleased that the university has chosen to support our initiative.'

CardioLife is the market name for a bioinformatics genetic testing service designed for diagnosing cardiovascular diseases across a wide range of conditions in the personalised medicine market. Its end users are patients seeking detailed information about the potential risks of developing cardiovascular diseases to facilitate prevention, accurate diagnosis, and personalised treatment.

The product, developed by the HSE International Laboratory of Bioinformatics, relies on two solutions: the NGS Pipeline Data Processing and Annotation software, which is used to analyse the results of genome-wide sequencing of patients' blood DNA in genetic laboratories, and databases of genomic mutations in patients with cardiovascular diseases. The output is a report detailing the results of the genetic testing, along with an interpretation provided by a cardiologist-geneticist.

With the financial support of 5 million roubles for 2025–2027, the plan is to develop and refine a virtual cardiopanel to create a diagnostic tool that allows for both a retrospective examination of the disease's pathological characteristics and the construction of prognostic models. As part of the project development, the goal is to enter the B2B market with a genetic testing service based on the developed technology by establishing partnerships with laboratories and medical centres. Subsequently, the project aims to expand into the B2C market with a comprehensive full-cycle offering.

Anatoly Natalenko, Deputy Director, HSE Centre for Commercialisation and Technology Transfer

'The financial support measure for commercialisation was specifically established to enable research teams to assess the marketability of their products and services, which are based on scientific groundwork formalised as intellectual property owned by HSE University. This support is integrated into the university's overall service ecosystem and is expected to facilitate the release of commercially viable solutions for both current and prospective industry partners of the university.’