Driving economic growth

As a Health Innovation Network, one of our driving principles is that wealth is as important as health. We aim to support the creation of a forward-thinking commercial environment in the West of England.

We believe that as part of a vibrant health and life sciences sector, the NHS can collaborate effectively with industry for patient benefit, while delivering greater value for the taxpayer, contributing towards the nation’s prosperity and stimulating economic growth.

Here are some examples of how exactly we do that:

Supporting healthcare innovators and encouraging inward investment

Our team offers a range of specialist support services and guidance to innovators who are developing products and services with the potential to improve patient outcomes, increase efficiencies and grow the UK health sector economy.

In the last year we supported 273 innovators, which includes academic and clinical entrepreneurs, lived-experience innovators, SMEs and large businesses, including multinationals.

We tailor our support according to the level of adoption readiness of the technology, the demand and interest from our local systems and the innovator’s needs.

Through this support, we have contributed to the national Health Innovation Network in leveraging over £490+ million in economic growth. This collective support has enabled these companies to create or safeguard over 912 jobs.

In addition to providing direct, tailored support to companies, our Innovation Exchange website is also designed to help innovators navigate the healthcare market. Last year, 7,712 people accessed our online resources at www.innovationexchange.co.uk.

We also support a range of national programmes, including SBRI Healthcare, the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme, the NHS Innovation Support Service, and the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA).

Three innovators supported by Health Innovation West of England were announced as NIA 2025 Fellows: Jinghui (Helen) Liang from LabCycle, Tom Oakley from Bleepa® and Melinda Rees from Psyomics Platform.

Exploring a potential health and life sciences cluster for the region

In 2024-25, we began working with strategic partners to gather views on the benefits and opportunities a health and life sciences ‘cluster’ might offer the region.

Currently the South West is the only region in the UK that hasn’t created a formal health and life sciences cluster. In other parts of the country, successful clusters are bringing together industry, investors, universities and research institutions, NHS organisations and health innovation networks to drive regional growth and productivity.

In 2025-26, we will continue to work with partners, including the GW4 Alliance and Health Innovation South West to coproduce structured proposals that build on collective ambitions, support more strategic collaborations, and showcase our regional talent and assets.

273

innovators were supported by our industry and innovation team this year

£490+ million

economic growth leveraged with the support of the national Health Innovation Network

912+

jobs created or safeguarded by companies supported by the national Health Innovation Network

7

companies took part in our first West of England Commercialisation Academy

7,712

people accessed our Innovation Exchange website

210

delegates attended our 2024 conference at UWE’s Enterprise Park

20

companies exhibited in the Innovation Zone at our 2024 conference

It was the ‘over’ investment in our life sciences base that helped us achieve what we achieved during the pandemic at the pace we managed to achieve it in. I want us all to enjoy the fruits of that labour and the treatments and the innovations before any other country. A truly great life sciences sector is built on a solid foundation for clinical trials and comes with big signals from the state about investment in R&D. How can we incentivise more companies to choose to set up in the UK and develop their product?

Jordan Cummins UK Competitiveness Director for the CBI, keynote speaker at our 2024 conference

West of England Commercialisation Academy

Challenge

The commercialisation of innovative medical solutions is challenging, particularly at the stage where a scalable business model is being developed. Success depends on the ability of companies to integrate a wide range of economic, technological, commercial, social and cultural factors in the commercialisation process.

Approach

In 2024-25 we teamed up with Triple Chasm to deliver the new West of England Commercialisation Academy, specifically designed to address the needs of later-stage health and care innovators.

The Commercialisation Academy is a free eight-week programme designed to support health and care innovators who are seeking wider adoption and scale of their innovations.

The programme is based on the Triple Chasm Model®, which provides a holistic data-driven framework that was devised following research into around 3,000 products taken to market.

Result

Seven companies successfully completed our first Commercialisation Academy programme last year, joining weekly workshops to help them develop their strategic commercialisation plans. We will continue to nurture ongoing relationships with these companies, signposting and supporting with any opportunities locally or nationally.

Building on this success, we will run our second Commercialisation Academy in autumn 2025. This year our selection criteria for companies will align with the three strategic shifts for the NHS: hospital to community, analogue to digital and sickness to prevention.  You can find out more here

I felt incredibly lucky to be invited to sit on the panel at the finale of the Commercialisation Academy for HealthTech innovators in the West of England. It was abundantly clear how much these founders have gained from their journey, and I very much look forward to monitoring the progress of these companies.

Lawrie Kidd Consultant Anaesthetist, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

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