£2M collaboration project connects life sciences companies with academics

King’s College London is leading a £2 million programme to help connect life sciences SMEs with academic partners to address challenges related to their products or services.

Medcity’s Collaborate to Innovate programme, which is part-funded by European Regional Development Fund and Higher Education Funding Council for England, is connecting 16 life sciences SMEs with academic partners.

Companies will be working with King’s College London, Imperial College London, Queen Mary University of London, and University College London to develop and commercialise their products. They will both work together to develop 6-12 month collaborative proposals worth up to £100,000.

Over 70 companies applied to the programme and a panel of academics and industry representatives selected 16 projects based on technological potential, R&D challenges, commercial potential and impact.

Sarah Haywood, CEO of MedCity said: “London and the South East has a strong life sciences ecosystem of innovative companies developing the next generation of therapeutic and healthcare products. We have everything from new drugs, development of healthcare services based on AI and VR technologies, new devices and smartphones used to help people manage their care.

“Sometimes you just need a helping hand with finding a key piece of the puzzle, to get the idea from mind to market. I’m excited that we have been able to match 16 ground-breaking SMEs with academics from our leading universities to develop their innovations and make them commercially viable.”

The types of projects selected for the programme include: a virtual reality rehabilitation platform, a surgery planning tool combining medical scans and machine learning algorithms, 3D printed orthotics for cerebal palsy patients, a physiotherapy gaming platform, and more.