Healthy Living and Agriculture Review 2025 – A focus on Health Tech

High-potential innovations in Health Tech

To mark the launch of our Healthy Living and Agriculture Review we’re sharing a series of themed insights exploring the UK-wide impact of business-led innovation across our four core areas: AgriFood Systems, Healthy Lives, Health Tech, and Future Medicines.

Some of the world’s most pressing challenges, from an ageing population to rising healthcare costs to the impact of infectious and chronic diseases, can be addressed by the health tech sector.

Data-driven innovations in therapeutics, digital health and medical technologies offer significant potential to expand access to healthcare, enable earlier diagnosis, and improve patient care. Through our Health Tech programmes we are supporting companies across the full innovation pathway, from research and development through to commercialisation.

Our flagship programme, the Biomedical Catalyst, supports high-potential, technology-agnostic innovations, helping companies to test ideas, validate new technologies, gain clinical evidence to support regulatory approval and attract further investment to support their growth.

Through the Biomedical Catalyst, we’ve supported over 500 UK-based SMEs who have secured £1bn further funding and created and retained 1,200 jobs.

Promoting better health outcomes for patients and populations by leveraging multiple sources of health data

We’re funding the next generation of data-driven solutions which are helping to shift the focus of healthcare from treatment to prevention. With greater access to patient health data, we can build a more accurate picture of the UK population and provide insight that can drive earlier interventions and better health outcomes.

This is why programmes like Our Future Health are so important. With initial funding from Innovate UK, Our Future Health was able to leverage significant additional resources from industry, charities and public funds. Having recruited over 1.3m volunteers, they are now the world’s largest health research programme, and are using the health records, genetic data, and other information from these volunteers, to create one of the most detailed pictures ever of people’s health that truly reflects the whole UK population.

Supporting the development of life-saving medical devices

Innovative front-line, life-saving medical devices are crucial to optimising healthcare delivery and improving patient outcomes. We are driving advancements in medical technologies by supporting UK-based innovators to develop devices that enhance critical care, diagnosis, and treatment around the world.

Through the Biomedical Catalyst, ScubaTx is one of many organisations we have supported in this area. They are developing technology that extends the viability of organs, improves transplant success rates, and offers new possibilities for patients in need.

Increasing the feasibility and adoption of technologies that streamline healthcare delivery

Innovation is needed to streamline the delivery of healthcare to enable an easier working experience for clinicians and better outcomes for patients. Our support is helping to boost the feasibility and adoption of these innovations to realise a new generation of tech-enabled healthcare.

With grant funding from Innovate UK, Appt Health developed a smart patient engagement and booking service to make it easier for patients to make and attend health appointments with their GPs. It easily connects to pre-existing surgery platforms, with 95% of GP practices across the UK now having access.

Driving the development of emerging medical technologies to solve global challenges

We’re supporting UK-based innovators to develop state-of-the-art solutions that can enhance patient outcomes, streamline clinical trials, and bring new therapies to market faster.

Another Biomedical Catalyst project, led by Cumulus Neuroscience, has developed a next-generation portable EEG headset allowing researchers to measure multiple aspects of brain function, including cognition, mood, memory, and language, in real time. Results showed adherence rates of over 94% and demonstrated how frequent at-home EEG monitoring could outperform traditional lab-based assessments, thereby offering a more scalable and cost-effective solution for tracking disease progression.

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Discover how business-led innovation is delivering real impact in Health Tech and explore the full story behind these case studies.

Explore our other perspectives on AgriFood Systems, Healthy Lives, and Future Medicines.

If you think Innovate UK Business Connect can help you, or if you have any feedback on this review, please get in touch.