Four projects have been granted a total of more than £430,000 in financial support in the early stages of their product development from Medtech Accelerator.

The projects are:

• £125,000 for TumourVue – Gita Moghaddam: TumourVue, in partnership with Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust & University of Cambridge, a disruptive medical imaging device for cancer surgery. The company is developing a clipon device that can be added to a pair of safety or prescription glasses allowing a colour-coded image to be superimposed onto the surgeon’s eye as an assistive technology to facilitate operations, with the award allowing them to develop a prototype and business plan;
• £100,000 for heat activated adhesive polymerisation for meshed groin hernia and abdominal wall repairs Andrew Hindmarsh: Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, with the project developing a novel, heat activated, adhesive polymerisation system or ‘glue’ that could be used for meshed groin hernia and abdominal wall repairs;
• £95,205 for a dissection plane splayer device by Amit Agrawal: Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust an over-the-glove tissue retraction device, designed to minimise trauma in surrounding tissue during surgical dissections;
• £109,000 for helping children with glue ear to hear Tamsin Brown: Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust – the development of a novel bone conduction headset technology for children with long-term glue ear, the persistent build-up of fluid in the middle part of the ear canal. The technology will be used in the school, clinical and home settings to overcome the child’s hearing loss, preventing them from falling behind at school at a crucial development stage.

The Medtech Accelerator project is a joint venture led by innovation hub Health Enterprise East (HEE) in partnership with the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP), Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority, the Eastern Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) and Essex County Council.

Chris Dashper, from New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership, said: “Technological innovation has been singled out by policymakers as playing a vital role in addressing some of the key challenges faced by the NHS, yet all too often innovations and great ideas fall at the first hurdle and fail to get to market. Thanks to the Medtech Accelerator, emerging medtech innovations can receive the funding and technical guidance they need to make it through the precarious proof of concept phase.

“It gives us great pride to be supporting four brilliant innovations, as well as several others from surrounding regions including Norfolk, all with the potential to radically transform the quality of care that surgical experts can deliver to patients. We look forward to seeing all four products in use in NHS hospitals in the not too distant future.”