Published: 17 October 2024
On Wednesday 9th October, the City St George’s Enterprise and Innovation team welcomed researchers, industry partners and local government partners across the London healthcare sector to celebrate the launch of the Health Innovation Nexus.
The Health Innovation Nexus offers a suite of opportunities and programmes to support the development of impactful health innovation, whether derived from academic research or a start-up lab. As part of this, it provides new funding opportunities, targeted workshops, and lab and office space for companies to rent.
Professor Jon Friedland, Dr Ambalika Batra-Penny, Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein
Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein, the President of City St George's, opened the event by emphasising the importance of innovation and enterprise in establishing the newly merged University as the ‘health powerhouse’ of London. Reflecting on his own experience, he said: “My personal engagement with innovation and start-ups has been one of the most exciting and stimulating aspects of my career.”
Showcasing innovative collaborations
The audience heard from three companies who showcased their successful collaborations with academics at City St George’s.
Philippe Riou, Director of Biology at NeoPhore, spoke about the fundamental role Dr Ferran Valderrama, Reader in Cancer Cell Biology from the Neurosciences and Cell Biology Research Institute, has played in growing the company. He reflected on their initial discussions to securing rented lab space within St George’s Tooting campus to create the Cancer Cell Lab. Together, this collaboration has enabled the company to expand in headcount and in their vision for the future of cancer immunotherapy drug discovery and development.
Next, Dr Henry Staines, Senior Lecturer in Global Health from the Institute for Infection and Immunity, and Marta Ponce, Product Specialist at TachMed, showcased their recent partnership to accelerate the development of the first in market, affordable diagnostics that are connected digitally for use in the home. Dr Staines reflected on how Innovate UK’s Accelerated Knowledge Transfer grant was the catalyst for collaboration that has enabled the team to provide Tachmed with critical knowledge exchange to develop the biosensor technology in their new health diagnostic platform.
The final showcase was presented by Dr Baba Sheba, Director of Digital Transformation, and Devi Kolli, Co-Founder and CEO of i3 Simulations. Together, they took the audience through the potential of virtual reality for paediatric training to create an immersive simulated environment to bolster the learning opportunities for medical students.
Cross-sector partnerships
Following the innovation showcase, Professor Jon Friedland, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise, chaired a panel that explored cross-sector partnerships in healthcare innovation across London.
Professor Friedland was joined by Dr Anne Blackwood, Chief Executive at Health Tech Enterprise, Paul Kirkbright, Head of Knowledge Exchange and Partnerships at South London Partnership, and Elizabeth Harris, Head of Inward Investment at Sutton Council. They shared their insightful perspectives on the successes, challenges and opportunities in creating meaningful and impactful partnerships to advance the health and medical sector.
New Health Innovation Nexus Space
To close the event, the University saw the launch of the Nexus Space - a new hub dedicated to facilitating knowledge exchange activities between current and prospective partners. The contemporary space sits in the heart of the Tooting campus and boasts a stylish open-plan flexible working zone, meeting area and private phone booth.
Three key priorities
“The launch of our Health Innovation Nexus is the culmination of our hard work over the last 4 years, continuously broadening our offering to enable the establishment of impactful partnerships with industry. This programme of work underpins our three priorities to support innovation, power collaboration and build capacity, to ultimately solve problems for the advancement of healthcare on a national and international scale.”
- Dr Ambalika Batra-Penny, Head of Enterprise and Innovation -
Learn more about the Health Innovation Nexus