Small and medium sized firms innovating within the healthcare technology sector are being invited to access up to £35,000 of expert commercial, technical and academic support to scale or get their projects to market, following the launch of a new life sciences programme.
Applications have opened for the ‘Healthcare Technologies Capability Connector’ (HTCC) Accelerator, a life sciences partnership led by the University of Hertfordshire in collaboration with Cranfield University and Imperial College London.
The acceleration support will be provided during a nine-month period and can benefit up to 15 companies. It will support healthcare technology firms with the development of products, services or technologies, including prototyping and testing support, as well as commercial support such as the exploration of appropriate routes to market and intellectual property commercialisation support.
Access to the Acceleration programme is competitive and to be eligible, applicants must demonstrate that their projects have potential to scale-up and would make a positive societal impact in the healthcare sector, and their product or service needs to be at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 3 or above.
The HTCC programme is aimed at strategically linking-up London-based entrepreneurs and innovation hubs, including the London MedTech cluster around White City, with Hertfordshire’s burgeoning life science sector, including the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst, alongside a range of science and technology businesses at Cranfield University’s Technology Park. The aim is to foster manufacturing and scaling of high growth potential businesses.
HTCC was officially launched at an industry event at the University of Hertfordshire, with interested SMEs encouraged to register their interest as soon as possible ahead of the recruitment and selection process, taking place towards this end of this month and throughout March.
In October last year the life sciences partnership was awarded just under £1.5m by Research England’s Connecting Capability Fund (CCF) to drive the development of innovative healthcare technologies across the region and beyond.
