HEE Launches 2007 Development Fund

The Health Enterprise East (HEE) 2007 Development Fund aims to support pre-market development of innovations arising from within the NHS. It provides financial support to inventors and their Trusts for new medical devices and technologies that require some additional proof of concept, further development or market research studies prior to commercialisation. In most cases the Intellectual Property in the innovation will be expected to remain with the originating NHS Trust.

 

Eligibility Criteria

 

The Development Fund is open to all NHS staff and related members. There is no restriction on the type of innovation that will be considered, as long as it fulfils the criteria below.

 

In order to be approved a proposal must demonstrate that:

 

  • The project addresses a clear unmet clinical or market need
  • There is a credible technical proposition
  • There are commercial or technical steps to be taken before the project can be transferred to an industry partner or new company vehicle
  • There are clear and credible next steps once the funding is spent (i.e. should lead to further commercial activities not further research)
  • Other sources of funding are not available for enabling those steps

 

The concepts to be proven by the programme could include (but are not limited to):

 

  • Development and manufacture of prototypes
  • Technical feasibility studies i.e. gathering data to demonstrate the efficacy of a proposed solution (as opposed to ‘blue-skies’ research which is not eligible for an award)
  • Adding “industrial strength” coding and documentation to software to enable licensing
  • Conducting a market feasibility study
  • Obtaining regulatory affairs advice
  • Writing a business plan

 

Application and approval process

 

Expressions of interest should be submitted via the IP Lead for your Trust (often the R&D Manager) who will then contact HEE. Applicants will be expected to first submit a formal innovation disclosure to HEE, available for download via the website (www.hee.org.uk), upon receipt of which HEE will begin a formal technology review process taking, typically, 4 weeks to complete. At the end of this period the application will be assessed against the eligibility criteria, and applicants will be informed as to the success of their application following the next meeting of the Project Review Committee (meetings take place once every fortnight). During the review process applicants will be asked to assist the project manager in building the case for funding the proposal, including determining clear deliverables or milestones, timescale for achievement and estimated costs.

 

Funding and Awards

 

The Development Fund provides awards up to £30,000 per project. Awards will be held by HEE in the first instance, and paid out retrospectively against approved, receipted costs. Eligible costs could include the production of prototypes, manpower, consumables, purchase of special equipment (routine equipment is specifically excluded), sub-contracting services for development etc. No overhead costs can be included however.

 

For more information please contact Dr Anne Blackwood on Tel: 01480 364925 or email: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it