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Businesses can apply for a share of up to £12 million to develop or test innovative ways of diagnosing, preventing and treating disease.

There is up to £12 million to support projects that are developing or testing out new healthcare products, technologies or processes.

This funding is available through the Biomedical Catalyst, a partnership between Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council that supports innovative opportunities in the life sciences.

Find out more about how we support innovation in health and life sciences.

Quicker, more effective healthcare

Projects in the Biomedical Catalyst could:

• help to prevent or manage chronic conditions
• lead to better detection or diagnosis of disease
• that treat disease or offer potential cures

In this funding round there are 2 competitions.

Late-stage projects

Up to £8 million is available for late-stage projects that test a well-developed concept and demonstrate its suitability in a relevant environment.

A late-stage project can include:

• initial human proof-of-concept studies
• demonstration of clinical utility and effectiveness
• demonstration of safety and efficacy. This includes phase I and II clinical trials
• developing production mechanisms
• prototyping
• market testing
• intellectual property protection

Competition information

• the competition is open, and the deadline for applications is 7 February 2018
• projects must be led by a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME), working alone or with other SMEs or research organisations
• we expect projects to range in size from £200,000 to £4 million and to last between 1 and 3 years
• businesses could attract up to 70% of their project costs

Find out more about the competition for late-stage awards and apply.

Primer awards

A further £4 million is available in primer awards. This is for projects that carry out technical evaluations through to proofs of concept in a model system.

A primer project could include:

• experimental evaluation done at laboratory scale
• initial demonstration using in vitro and in vivo models. It does not include human clinical trials such as safety or efficacy
• exploring potential production mechanisms
• early-stage prototyping
• product development planning
• intellectual property protection

Competition information

• the competition is open, and the deadline for applications is 7 February 2018
• projects must be led by an SME, working alone or with other SMEs or research organisations
• we expect projects to range in size from £200,000 to £1.5 million and to last between 1 and 2 years
• businesses could attract up to 70% of their project costs

Find out more about the competition for primer awards and apply.