ABHI doubles Texas innovation hub capacity

The Association of British HeathTech Inudstries (ABHI) has doubled the capacity of its Texas innovation hubs, with another eight companies joining.

The Hub is a partnership between ABHI, the UK’s health technology trade association, and the Dell Medical School at The University of Texas in Austin. Companies include: Firstkind Medical, Rightangled Diagnostics, Owen Mumford, Directed Systems, Virti, DCC Vital and Aleisi Surgical.

They join companies such as: Lumeon, Forte Medical, Timesco, P3, Deltex Medical, Endomag and Deontics who were involved in the first phase of The Hub.

It is located within Austin’s Health District and is a base for UK companies. The district physically links Dell Medical School to key partners, Seton Healthcare Family and Central Health and includes 600,000 square feet of space dedicated to innovative education, care and research.

Each business will be able to work closely with leaders from The University of Texas, accessing Dell Med’s full range of facilities, innovation teams and faculty, whilst being supported by ABHI’s network of connections across Texas’ four major cities. They can also use ABHI's highly developed healthtech network, including investors, hospital systems, chambers of commerce and key business groups.

Jackie Fielding, regional vice president for Medtronic and vice chair of the ABHI Board of Directors said: “We are deeply supportive of the work ABHI is doing to assist UK companies with their export strategies, and the ABHI Innovation Hub is a prime opportunity for businesses to develop operations stateside. On behalf of the ABHI Board, I am delighted with how well the US Accelerator Programme is going and we are proud to be developing these two-way trading partnerships.”

There is also access to a team of senior mentors who are on-hand to offer support, as well as ABHI's year-round support and introductions across the US.

The Innovation Hub is part of the ABHI’s broader US Accelerator programme which also includes two tailored trade missions to key US healthtech hubs, developed to forge and develop partnerships with leading clinical communities.

Ruben Rathnasingham, assistant dean for health, product innovation at Dell Medical School said: “Since the launch of the ABHI Innovation Hub at Dell Med, we have met with, and learned from, numerous small and large UK businesses, academic medical centers and health systems. We have helped several UK-based businesses connect with key US market leaders and are also in active partnership discussions with UK-based start-ups who now have a presence in Austin. ABHI’s International Program, that supports US-based companies enter and explore the UK market, has been a further value-driver for our partnership."