A new round of funding is on offer through the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) Healthcare, focussed on cardiovascular disease and integrated care and social care.
Companies and organisations are invited to bid for funding to develop solutions. The competition is supported by Academic Health Science Networks across England, including the Innovation Agency which covers Cheshire, Lancashire, South Cumbria and Merseyside.
The themes for bids are:
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) including:
- Detection and prevention
- Intervention and invasive investigations
- Efficiency of CVD pathway
Integrated care and social care including:
- Improving effective data sharing system across the care network
- Reducing social care workforce pressure
SBRI Healthcare is funded by NHS England to help develop innovative products and services that address unmet health needs. This is a phase one competition, intended to show the technical feasibility of the proposed concept. The development contracts placed will be for a maximum of six months and offer up to £100,000 per project.
Briefings by clinicians for interested companies will take place at events in London on 1 July and Manchester on 10 July.
A recent beneficiary of SBRI funding was St Helens-based Inovus Medical, who received £100,000 to enable them to introduce augmented reality and software additions, to enhance their laparoscopic surgical simulator products.
Founder Dr Elliot Street said: "Inovus Medical received support from SBRI Healthcare following their ‘technology in surgery’ themed funding call.
“The support has enabled us to fast track the development of new laparoscopic simulation technology that is set to democratise access to high fidelity surgical simulation, improving operative performance and saving millions for the NHS.
“The application for funding was supported by our local AHSN, the Innovation Agency, who helped turn an already straight forward process into one that was so streamlined it had no impact on the daily operations of the company, a really important aspect to funding for smaller companies such as Inovus.
“I really can’t speak higher of the Innovation Agency, the wider AHSN network and the SBRI funding programme and would urge any company with expertise in the calls for funding to apply.”
The deadline for applications is 14 August, and details on how to register for the briefing events are available on the SBRI Healthcare website.
