The Biomedical Catalyst fund has up to £10 million to invest in innovative projects that tackle some of the biggest healthcare challenges in the world.
Better and more efficient
A growing and ageing population is creating a need for better, more efficient health services.
The fund is a partnership between Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council. It aims to support innovative ideas across the life sciences sector, to make ideas from research and academia a reality.
Support is available across disciplines
Funding support is available in any sector or discipline including:
- stratified healthcare
- advanced therapies, such as gene and cell therapies
- diagnostics
- medical technologies and devices
Projects should develop innovative healthcare products, technologies and processes. This could include projects that aim to:
- prevent disease or manage chronic health conditions
- detect or diagnose disease earlier
- provide tailored treatments that change the underlying disease or offer cures
There are 2 funding competitions being run. These are for:
- feasibility studies to explore and evaluate the commercial potential of early-stage ideas. Up to £2 million is available
- early-stage projects to create sufficient data to support later testing of products in a clinical or other relevant setting. Up to £8 million is available
Competition information
- the competitions open on 26 March 2018, and the deadline for applications is 6 June 2018
- projects must be led by an SME, either working alone or with other SMEs or research organisations
- we expect feasibility projects to have total costs of up to £200,000 and to last between 3 and 12 months
- we expect early stage projects to have total costs of between £250,000 and £4 million and to last between 12 and 36 months
- businesses could attract up to 70% of their project costs
- a briefing event will be held on 4 April 2018