Behind the scenes at Medilink East Midlands

Lu Rahman asked Medilink East Midlands to reveal what life is like at this busy organisation.

Medilink East Midlands (EM) is a business support organisation based at BioCity Nottingham which helps East Midlands organisations in the life sciences and healthcare sectors to grow. Medilink EM helps businesses form partnerships, develop products and services, and share ideas. It also currently delivers three projects which allow East Midlands businesses to access support and grant funding to help them innovate and grow.

INSTILS operates in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, SoLSTICE operates in Leicester and Leicestershire and ACTIS operates in the South-East Midlands. All the projects are part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the East Midlands Academic Health Science Network. Support and advice is available from sector specialist innovation advisors and grants are available to help overcome innovation barriers.

Three types of business support grants are available:

Innovation Support Grants (ISG), helping SMEs bring new and improved products and services to market. The typical types of costs which could be considered include; from proof of concept through to being ready for manufacture, smaller scale clinical testing and evaluation and can also include regulatory, quality, and IP. 

NuVision Biotherapies benefitted from an ISG for the development of its ground-breaking Omnigen treatment, a world-first in the field of sight-saving therapy.

Specialist Networking Grants (SNGs), helping SMEs to attend events beneficial to their business. The SNG finance up to 50% of the costs for travel, accommodation and event registration to attend a niche networking event, seminar or conference. This could be in the UK or internationally.

SurePulse Medical benefited from an SNG for attendance at the invite-only Texas Medical Centre Medical Accelerator Programme.

Medical Technology Trial (MTT) grants, helping SMEs to test and evaluate products and services in a clinical setting. This is a significant grant available to support the sizeable costs associated with a clinical trial

Sanandco were successful with an MTT grant, which it received for the evaluation of its MonitorMe device. This is a telephone, equipped with sensors to monitor the patient’s vital signs including temperature, heart rate and pulse transit time.

Jo Maltby, project leader Innovation, Medilink East Midlands

Jo Maltby is one of Medilink EM’s Innovation Advisers and supports businesses in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, as part of the INSTILS project. She joined the Medilink team in June 2019 and has spent over 15 years as a Business Adviser working across multiple sectors.

Each Medilink EM adviser spends time getting to know and understand an organisation, taking a company-wide view to see where they can add value and maximise the overall support available. This could be through accessing grant funding, direct advice and support, helping the company to make connections with universities and clinicians and forging connections and partnerships opportunities with businesses.

In addition to the 1-1 business support offered by Medilink EM’s Innovation Advisers, Medilink also offers a series of specialist sector events.

Jo Rudzki, project leader events and marketing

Rudzki joined Medilink EM in January 2019 and over twenty years’ experience in events organisation and delivery. She is part of the Medilink EM events team, which is responsible for both Medilink East Midlands events and the management of Medilink EM partner events. Rudzki helps to deliver project events which include Special Interest Groups - these are held on subjects such as digital health, infectious diseases, food supplements and medical technologies and systems. Companies which attend these events can learn more about the given subject and hear from industry thought leaders.

In addition to SIGs, Medilink EM is also currently running a suite of events in partnership with the East Midlands Academic Health Science Network, designed to help companies to access the NHS Market. These courses are free to attend and illustrate different aspects of NHS Market Access. Over the three sessions, companies learn all about NHS structure and process, preparing an NHS business case and creating valid evidence and evaluation. Upcoming NHS market access events will be held throughout 2020.