New ideas for tackling disease: apply for business funding

Businesses can apply for a share of £15 million to better detect, prevent, manage and treat disease and chronic health conditions.

The Biomedical Catalyst is inviting primer and late-stage projects for new healthcare technologies, products and processes.

There is up to £15 million for new healthcare technologies, products and processes that support the most innovative opportunities in the life sciences sectors.

The funding is available through the Biomedical Catalyst, which is a partnership between Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council.

There are 2 competitions in this funding round, one for primer awards and another for late-stage projects.

The Biomedical Catalyst supports projects from any sector or discipline including:

Organisations that have received funding in previous rounds include Entia, which has received more than £1 million from Innovate UK, much of it through the Biomedical Catalyst.

This has allowed it to work with The Royal Marsden Hospital to develop a hand-held blood testing kit that can be used at home by chemotherapy patients to help them better manage their treatment and limit the number of unnecessary visits they need to make to the hospital.

The system – which has won an AXA PPP Health Tech & You Challenge award – is also likely to have other applications outside cancer care because blood counts are so widely used in hospitals and GP practices.

Technical evaluation through to proof of concept

Up to £5 million is available for ‘primer’ projects, which cover a technical evaluation of an idea through to proof of concept.