Funding

The Biomedical Catalyst (BMC) funding programme supports UK businesses to test and develop innovative technologies for health and care. It supports ideas for: disease prevention and management; disease detection and diagnosis; and tailored treatments that change a disease or offer potential cures.

The programme, run by Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council, provides funding to help UK SMEs speed up the process of bringing new products to market and secure onward investment.

Support is available for any life science sector or discipline, including medical technologies and devices, advanced therapies (cell and gene therapies), digital health, drug discovery, and diagnostics. The Biomedical Catalyst has 4 competitions designed to support SMEs to progress projects that are at different stages of development:

1.     Feasibility Award

2.     Primer Award

3.     Early-stage Award

4.     Late-stage Award

This competition combines the early and late stage strands. A separate competition combining the feasibility and primer strands is being run in conjunction with this one. You can apply for this early and late stage competition without needing to go through feasibility and primer.

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

For early and late stage awards, UK businesses can apply for a share of up to £7 million to explore and evaluate the commercial potential of a scientific idea to solve a healthcare challenge. You can apply for this early and late stage competition without needing to go through feasibility and primer.

The aim of the 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. Relevant projects will have already been validated in a laboratory or relevant setting. At the end of the project, the technology will be ready to be demonstrated in a relevant environment. The late-stage award is designed to test a well-developed concept and show its effectiveness in a relevant environment. Projects are expected to 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 must start by 1 September 2019 and end by 31 March 2021. It must last at least 1 year.

For further information and to apply please click here.