By David Kidney
Down the ages, the West Midlands has a great track record on innovation. From the first industrial revolution to the latest amazing tech breakthroughs, we have been at the forefront of changes that improve people’s lives and enrich our region.
Back in 2022, a Government decision to launch an Innovation Accelerator programme demonstrated our pole position on innovation. We were one of just three regions to benefit from £100M of funding. The others were Glasgow and the North West.
The West Midlands Innovation Accelerator was born with a focus on CleanTech, HealthTech and MedTech.
Within it, the West Midlands Health Tech Innovation Accelerator (WMHTIA) got £16M to accelerate the commercialisation of cutting-edge healthcare technologies.
Twenty-one partners joined together to support innovators, boosting the West Midlands economy and improving health outcomes for the people who live and work here.
And the WMHTIA has been enormously successful in its first three years:
- Created or safeguarded 110 jobs in the West Midlands
- Provided 105 health tech companies/academic teams with intensive bespoke development support
- Awarded grants to the value of £2.48m to support health tech development
- Secured £28.4M of co-investment in the first year alone
- Engaged 269 health tech enterprises in WMHTIA’s support network
- Development of strategic partnerships between the region’s academic partners, NHS trusts, and private industry.
Faced with this record of success, it is no wonder that the WMHTIA is getting a £10M funding boost to support even more of the region’s innovative businesses, researchers and entrepreneurs to grow the economy. WMHTIA, as part of the West Midlands Combined Authority’s flagship Innovation Accelerator, will utilise the funding boost its achievements further.
Check out WMHTIA’s website for more details: https://wmhtia.com/
David Kidney, Executive Chair, West Midlands Health Technologies Cluster
