Biomedical Catalyst 2017 round 4: primer award

Key Features

Small or medium-sized UK companies can apply for a share of up to £4 million to work alone or with others on solving healthcare challenges in a model system.

Programme:     Biomedical Catalyst

Award:     Up to £1.5m

Opens: 27th Nov 2017

Closes: 7th Feb 2018

! This scheme is now closed

This is a competition for a primer award in the Biomedical Catalyst.

The aim of the Biomedical Catalyst is to support the development of innovative healthcare products, technologies and processes. These can include:

  • disease prevention and proactive management of health and chronic conditions
  • earlier and better detection and diagnosis of disease, leading to better patient outcomes
  • tailored treatments that either change the underlying disease or offer potential cures

The Biomedical Catalyst has 4 types of funding award. These are: feasibility, primer, early stage and late stage. They are designed to help SMEs developing a product or process to provide an innovative solution to a health and care challenge. The scheme supports progression from initial concept through to late stage development

The aim of this award is to conduct a technical evaluation of your idea through to proof of concept in a model system, and can include:

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

Applications from any sector or discipline are welcome, including:

  • stratified healthcare (both therapeutic and diagnostic components)
  • advanced therapies (gene and cell therapies)
  • diagnostics
  • digital health
  • medical technologies and devices

If you choose the innovation area ‘Diagnostics, medical technology and devices’,  you must indicate within the scope whether your project falls within ‘Diagnostics’ or ‘Medical technology and devices’.

Eligibility

To lead a project you must:

  • be a UK-based SME
  • work on your own or with other UK SMEs or research organisations.
  • carry out your project work in the UK

Your project can focus on feasibility studies or industrial research. This will depend on the challenge.

Projects can range in size from £200k to £1.5m(total project costs).

Projects should last 12 to 24 months.

You could get up to 70% of your eligible project costs if you are an SME.