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Led by Innovate UK on behalf of UK Research and Innovation, the pilot Innovation Accelerators programme invested £100m in 26 transformative R&D projects to accelerate the growth of three high-potential innovation clusters – Glasgow City Region, Greater Manchester and West Midlands. This is a new model of R&D decision making that empowers local leaders to harness innovation to drive regional economic growth, help attract private investment, and develop future technologies.
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The Challenge:
Significant support and associated funding have been leveraged for businesses within the health and med tech sector across the West Midlands. This has been largely targeted at innovators who have reached a stage where they are ready to grow (TRL 3 +) within an accelerator environment. However, there remains an absence of support, outside academia in particular, for early concept stage to launch ideas, robust feasibility assessment and guidance on taking those first steps. This creates a significant gap in provision that could lead to a shortage in pipeline of highly scalable businesses for the sector. Many of the partners consulted have highlighted difficulties in where to signpost those businesses who are ‘not ready’ for the existing support. Therefore, these innovators currently must find their ‘readiness’ on their own, waste resources and/or potentially stagnate and not progress any further.
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Main Objectives:
1.To develop a strong pipeline of new, innovative health tech & med tech businesses within the West Midlands
2.To create a pathway for innovators in other sectors to better understand and pivot into the broader health & life science sector.
3.Plug a critical gap in support infrastructure, which currently means a gap of support for health and med tech innovation at TRL 1-3.
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Main Outcomes:
1.To incubate and nurture challenge-led ideas and produce a group of innovative businesses within the health and med tech sector with a strong foundation which will allow them to develop, attract investment and have a clear pathway to market entry.
2.To extend the current support provision within the sector by plugging an existing gap which has the potential to currently prevent innovations from reaching market. This includes being able to service businesses who have already entered the WMHTIA programme but are unable to be adequately supported due to the absence of some foundational activities being in place.
To increase resilience, diversification and new market opportunities for those innovators pivoting into the health and med tech sector, combined with knowledge transfer opportunities that come with cross-sector innovation.
Slingshot