NHS hub launches MedTech NAVIGATOR with £1mn grant

Health Enterprise East (HEE), one of the NHS’ principle innovation hubs, has recently been awarded £1mn to develop its NAVIGATOR programme.

Provided by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the grant will allow HEE to deliver a series of events, initiatives and reports via the MedTech NAVIGATOR over a three-year timespan. 

The digital solution was conceived as a method of driving innovation and fostering collaboration between healthcare providers, academics and trailblazing SMEs. 

Able to identify unmet needs, generate market insights, link databases, support the development of SMEs and improve analytical capabilities, MedTech NAVIGATOR could prove highly significant for the East of England’s medical capacity. 

Forming partnerships to create solutions

Regarding the launch, Joop Tanis, Director of MedTech Consulting at HEE, said, “In our experience, effective partnerships lie at the heart of successful medtech innovation. 

“All too often, clinicians and developers with good ideas fail to connect and as a result potentially great innovations don’t make it off the drawing board. 

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“The MedTech NAVIGATOR is designed to make collaboration between NHS and industry innovators as seamless as possible, facilitating introductions and knowledge sharing at the very earliest stages of product development.”

Tanis confirmed that initial uptake for the idea had been enthusiastic and demonstrated a strong appetite for the continuation of the project. 

“We are thrilled to be working with the European Regional Development Fund to deliver this programme and are excited to find out what lies ahead,” he added.

Tackling relevant medical topics

Significantly, considering current concerns over the Covid-19 (coronavirus) outbreak (which is now officially a pandemic, according to the WHO), the programme’s first research theme will be respiratory disease.

It’s possible that the effects of coronavirus, the symptoms of which include shortness of breath and which can adversely affect pre-existing medical conditions such as asthma, could also be explored by this research.

For more information on healthcare topics - please take a look at the latest edition of Healthcare Global.

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