News

Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) joined forces with law firm Mills & Reeve to host an informal networking evening for health tech entrepreneurs and investors.

The evening was a ‘takeover’ of Mills & Reeve’s regular Tech Tuesday events, which provide an opportunity for people in the Leeds tech ecosystem to meet up.

Yorkshire & Humber AHSN invited health tech innovators and entrepreneurs from across the country to the Brewery Tap, Leeds to network and build links within the Leeds ecosystem.

Dr Sean Clarkson, Programme Manager at Yorkshire & Humber AHSN, explains the reason for the Tech Tuesday ‘takeover’:

“One of the key roles of an AHSN is to support the spread and adoption of innovations into the NHS.

“This means we are committed to supporting innovators to adopt their technologies into the health system and align them to locally identified challenges or areas of need. To achieve this, we work both locally and nationally to connect and broker partnerships between health and care, academia and industry.

“By taking over a Tech Tuesday evening we were able to facilitate introductions, highlight opportunities within the health system to innovators, and signpost innovators to a range of support and contacts/networks. We were also able to highlight our recently launched innovation accelerator Propel@YH.”

Propel@YH is Yorkshire and Humber’s first digital health accelerator programme set up to provide innovative SMEs developing digital health solutions with access to support and advice aimed at enabling accelerated company growth and increased market presence.

Yorkshire & Humber AHSN has commissioned this programme and it will be delivered by mHabitat. The first successful cohort will be announced in May.

Dr Clarkson added: “We’re really pleased with the number of people who attended this event, especially those who travelled some distance to join us and I’d like to thank everyone for making it such a positive event.

“I’d also like to thank Mills & Reeve for allowing us to take over the evening, and we’re keen to run similar events in the future”

The NHS spends approximately £6 billion a year on medical technology, also known as MedTech, such as medical devices, equipment and digital tools. It is an industry that accounts for over 86,000 jobs in the UK, almost a third of which are within small companies, and supports an additional 24,600 service and supply roles.

There are more than 500 MedTech companies based in the Leeds area, which is also home to 22 per cent of the UK’s digital health sector workforce.

A new report from the AHSN Network – The MedTech Landscape Review – provides an essential guide for companies looking to successfully develop and roll out innovations in this complex and diverse industry, focused around the MedTech innovation pathway.