Funders Re-Unite at Med-Tech Innovation Expo

For the third year running NIHR, UKRI and SBRI Healthcare have come together to exhibit on Stand C28 at Med-Tech Innovation Expo, sponsor the Start-up Zone and will provide a session to help innovators with “Unlocking NHS Access,” on the Med-Tech Innovation Conference Stage.

Creating innovations that are successfully adopted by the NHS is not simply a question of developing the best technical solution, product, or service. As a generalisation it can be stated that the technology is only 20% of the ‘exam question’, and even if you get top marks for technology, you may still not pass the test. It is important that companies appreciate these issues and address them at the start of their development process.

Applications for funding from our three organisations will force you to think about things like IP, regulatory approval, patient involvement and commercialisation and adoption. Through our networks and partnerships, we can bring expertise, resources, mentorship, and advice to help you engage with the NHS to help get your innovative technologies to patients.

Who You Will See In Stand C28

When you come to talk to us on the stand you will see three different logos, three different colour schemes and three different slide-loops on the screens. Plus, of course, the enthusiastic teams representing the organisations behind the acronyms:

The NIHR (National Institute for Health and Care Research) was established in 2006 to "create a health research system in which the NHS supports outstanding individuals, working in world-class facilities, conducting leading-edge research focused on the needs of patients and the public."

Funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, we work in partnership with the NHS, universities, local government, other research funders, patients, and the public to enable and deliver world-leading health and social care research that improves people's health and wellbeing and promotes economic growth.

Our work focuses on early translational research, clinical research and applied health and social care research, centred on England but collaborating closely with the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We are also a major funder of applied health research in low- and middle-income countries, work that is principally funded through UK government aid.

Come and talk to us about funding (for example through the i4i Programme) for product development and evidence generation to support your regulatory approval and market access, and for access to people who can help with advice, collaboration or designing and leading a clinical study

UKRI (UK Research and Innovation) was launched in April 2018 and is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). The organisation brings together the seven disciplinary research councils, Research England, and the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.

The nine councils work together to deliver an ambitious agenda, drawing on our great depth and breadth of expertise and the enormous diversity of our portfolio, maintaining and championing the creativity and vibrancy of disciplines and sectorspecific priorities and communities. Our councils shape and deliver both sectoral and domain-specific support.

Whether through research council grants, quality-related block grants from Research England, or grants and wider support for innovative businesses from Innovate UK, we work with our stakeholders to understand the opportunities and requirements of all the different parts of the research and innovation landscape, maintaining the health, breadth, and depth of the system.

Come and talk to us about opportunities for grant funding, investment, or loans as well as business support for your rapidly scaling business (Innovate UK EDGE) or collaboration and networking (KTN).

The Small Business Research Initiative Healthcare (SBRI Healthcare) is an Accelerated Access Collaborative initiative, managed by LGC Grant Management Group’s Innovations team, delivered in partnership with the Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs). It provides funding and support to develop and accelerate innovations that meet health and social care needs identified by NHS England. Competitions are open to any type of organisation including academia, NHS providers, charities, and corporates, but is particularly suited to small and medium-sized enterprises.

Projects will need a strong commercialisation plan and are supported through a phased approach that enables testing for business feasibility, prototype development, and the generation of early clinical evidence, as well as later stage products through supporting real world implementation. To date SBRI

Healthcare has supported over 324 innovations with £129 million+ of funding, generated 162 patents, leveraged over £607 million of private investment, created and retained 1776+ jobs and improved the outcomes of millions of patients.

Come and talk to us about opportunities for funding, how SBRI works and delivers new technology to meet NHS needs. Plus, some of the support we give to our funded companies.

THE START-UP ZONE & PITCH

Check out the companies in the Start-up Zone who nearly all have had funding from one or more of our programmes.

Unlocking Nhs Access

The Conference Stage session we are hosting is designed to address the two issues of how the NHS costs things and assesses new technology, which will help inform your business model, and who you need to engage with in the NHS to make your pitch.

This is based on the ‘Lock and Key’ analogy (Figs 1 and 2) as a useful way to think about issues that must be correct from both the company (key) and NHS (lock) perspective to ‘unlock’ successful adoption by the NHS. What we are hoping to do with this session is to try to develop a more ‘transparent lock’, i.e. make it easier for you to understand the internal settings of the NHS locks so that it is easier to work out the what the ‘pin settings’ are for your innovation.

The message to emphasise is that most issues that determine the success of your innovation in getting adopted by the NHS are not related to technical performance, although that is clearly essential. Figure 1 illustrates the areas that companies are best positions to tackle themselves, these are in the key ‘bow’, such as IP management, regulation, and manufacturing. The ‘cut’ section illustrates the areas that are important to NHS adoption but are often hard for companies to understand such as coding, tariffs, procurement, and decommissioning issues. This is not an exhaustive list but shows some of the areas we want to review during the session.

Figure 2 shows how the lock & key system works, there needs to be an alignment between the pins and key cut, with the Pins representing the needs of the NHS for adoption and the Cuts representing how well the company has met these requirements. Without the alignment of all the issues the key can’t open the lock, even if there is perfect alignment with most issues. The opaque nature of the ‘NHS Lock’ means companies find it difficult to get a correct key cut, we need to have a more transparent NHS lock.

NIHR, SBRI Healthcare and Innovate UK will exhibit at Med-Tech Innovation Expo on Stand C28.