Health Enterprise East launches the MedTech NAVIGATOR program

With a £ 1 m grant from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), leading NHS innovation and technology consultancy Health Enterprise East (HEE) has unveiled its MedTech NAVIGATOR programme.

Health Enterprise East launches the MedTech NAVIGATOR program

Over a three-year cycle, HEE will deliver a range of activities, initiatives and market reports through MedTech NAVIGATOR aimed at driving innovation in eastern England and fostering cooperation and understanding between industry and NHS experts in the area.

Eastern England already has significant research and innovation skills among its 125,000 NHS staff, but collaboration with SMEs–which have the ability to provide solutions to currently unmet NHS needs–remains minimal.

As such, HEE aims to deploy the MedTech NAVIGATOR as a tool for building and revitalizing links between the healthcare system, academic institutions and creative SMEs in the area. In addition to providing improved patient experiences, this collective strategy is also geared towards promoting economic development in and beyond the East of England.

A variety of components are prepared for implementation of the MedTech NAVIGATOR programme. Firstly, work in areas such as market access and health economics will be conducted in different subjects, with three covered annually. Each should concentrate on areas needing unique clinical or organizational needs.

The program's first research focus is respiratory disease, following an HEE study on the environment for respiratory disorders such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), NHS asthma and lung cancer. The inaugural workshop was held on February 2020 and offered physicians, SME innovators and patients the opportunity to explore areas for collaborative product development.

Looking to the future, the MedTech NAVIGATOR program will see the launch of HEE Innovation Grants designed to help organizations looking to collaborate with clinical and academic partners in new research and innovation. Finally, the initiative will also include the creation of MedTech CONNECT, an online database enabling SMEs to easily identify and contact clinical experts willing to work with industry partners.

The MedTech NAVIGATOR seeks to make the relationship between NHS and industry innovators as smooth as possible, enabling launch and sharing of information at the very earliest stages of product creation. The tremendous interest in the first workshop for companies and the positive reviews we got are further proof of the strong demand for collaboration of this kind. What the MedTech NAVIGATOR should do is to leverage knowledge from all walks of life and thus serve as a platform for innovation.