JawBuddy, a jaw pain app goes on trial
130 patients start a randomised trial in December. What they are testing is a phone app for jaw pain.
The app is JawBuddy, from a team based at SpinLab - The HHL Accelerator in Leipzig. It has raised €818,000 in pre-seed funding, reported on 4 November. HALBZEIT, a healthcare platform, led. Dentist Dr. Siegfried Marquardt, oral and maxillofacial surgeon Dr. Guido Sigron, Mittelständische Beteiligungsgesellschaft Sachsen and four business angels joined. The total includes the Business Angel Bonus from Sächsische Aufbaubank.
The product: about ten minutes a day of exercises for jaw pain, teeth grinding and TMJ tension, designed by physiotherapists and dentists. The smartphone camera measures progress, the plan adapts, and users can export a report for their dentist. It is registered as a Class I medical device under the EU MDR.
Co-founder and CEO Leon Rauch had jaw pain himself for years, and says he "saw how little you can do between two dental appointments."
What this round pays for is evidence. The goal is reimbursement by health insurers. Clinical pilots are running at five sites, including Uniklinik RWTH Aachen. A care contract with a major statutory insurer is being negotiated, due to start in early 2027. Then there is the trial itself, multicentre and randomised.
Luisa Wasilewski of HALBZEIT names the market: "patients with jaw problems who keep coming back." Every dental practice knows them, she says.
Rauch founded the company in 2025 with physiotherapist Moritz Scherer and Benjamín Cádiz de Gracia. SpinLab - The HHL Accelerator says it takes no equity from its startups.