Biomedical Catalyst 2020: round 1, early and late stage awards

Key Features

UK registered SMEs can apply for a share of up to £30 million to develop a product or process that is an innovative solution to a health and care challenge.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £30 million

Opens: 27th Jul 2020

Closes: 7th Oct 2020

! This scheme is now closed

Overview

UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £30 million to develop innovative healthcare products, technologies and processes.

These can include, for example:

  • 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

Scope

The aim of this early and late stage competition is to enable companies to create a data package that can support the subsequent testing of their products, or to carry out evaluations in a clinical setting or other relevant environment.

Testing can include:

  • experimental evaluation (at laboratory scale)
  • use of in vitro and in vivo models to evaluate proof of concept or safety
  • exploring potential production mechanisms
  • prototyping
  • product development planning
  • intellectual property protection
  • demonstrating of clinical utility and effectiveness
  • demonstrating of safety and efficacy (including phase 1 and 2 clinical trials)
  • regulatory planning

Your project must focus on the development of a product or process that is an innovative solution to a defined health and/or care challenge.

This competition combines the early and late stage strands of the Biomedical Catalyst only.

Early stage

The aim of an early-stage award is to create a data package that is sufficient to support the testing of your product or process in a clinical setting or other relevant environment.

Late stage

The late-stage award is designed to test a well-developed concept and show its effectiveness in a clinical setting or other relevant environment.

Your project must build on prior credible research on a product prototype or process. This is likely to have included a demonstration or validation in an appropriate model system.

Your project can focus on any health and care sector or discipline. Innovate UK particularly welcome applications that support innovation in the following areas:

  • child health technologies
  • innovations that support clinical trials in the UK
  • biomedical innovations that combat the threat of antimicrobial resistance

You must align your project to one of the following innovation areas:

  • medical technologies and devices
  • stratified healthcare
  • advanced therapies (gene and cell therapies)
  • digital health
  • drug discovery
  • diagnostics

Eligibility

To lead a project or work alone your organisation must:

  • be a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise SME or a research and technology organisation (RTO)
  • carry out its project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

If the lead organisation is an RTO you must collaborate with at least one SME.

Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must:

  • be a UK registered business of any size, academic institution, charity, not-for-profit, public sector organisation or RTO
  • carry out your project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
  • be invited by the lead organisation

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project. Partners must enter their own project costs.

Large companies will not be able to claim grant funding.

Funding Costs

Up to £30 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition.

Your project must:

  • have total eligible costs between £250,000 and £4 million
  • start on 1 March 2021
  • end by 29 February 2024
  • last between 12 months and 36 months

If your organisation’s work on the project is mostly commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically.

For feasibility studies (early stage projects only) and industrial research projects (early stage or late stage projects), you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

  • up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
  • up to 60% if you are a medium-sized organisation

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activities as part of the project in your consortium can share up to 50% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation, this maximum is shared between them.

If your project’s total eligible costs fall outside of our eligibility criteria, you must provide justification by email to support@innovateuk.ukri.org at least 10 working days before the competition closes. Innovate UK will decide whether to approve your request.

Exclusions

Innovate UK will not fund projects that they consider to be at too early a stage, for example:

  • basic research
  • generation of pure scientific and technological knowledge
  • development of research ideas, hypotheses and experimental designs that have no practical commercial application

Innovate UK will not fund projects that are too close to market or are already in market, such as:

  • evaluations to inform labelling
  • laboratory accreditation
  • distribution or marketing activity
  • post-marketing studies
  • post-marketing surveillance